


Valentine's Day Massacre

by Somebodys_Nightmare



Series: Hard Boiled [1]
Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII (Video Game 1997), Final Fantasy VII Remake (Video Game 2020)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Noir, Crime Scenes, Crimes & Criminals, Detective Noir, Don't Take This Too Seriously, Erotic Thriller, F/M, Film Noir, Hardcore, Hardcore Sex, Murder, Murder Mystery, Mystery, Shameless Smut, Smoking, Smut, Thriller, but wait! there's more, detective Cloud, everybody smokes, femme fatale Tifa, happy valentine's day bitches, people die, some characters maybe be out OOC, this was supposed to be a one shot why the fuck is it now a multichapter endeavor, will somebody get me professional help
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-13
Updated: 2021-03-13
Packaged: 2021-03-13 22:49:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 64,647
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29409348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Somebodys_Nightmare/pseuds/Somebodys_Nightmare
Summary: AU.A city plagued by violence.A detective who can't resist temptation.Trusts that are broken and repaired with the turbulence of the mists of mako that hover above the city.On Valentines's Day, Detective Cloud Strife learns the true purpose - and the costs - of the lonely job he set out to do more than a decade ago.
Relationships: Tifa Lockhart & Cloud Strife, Tifa Lockhart/Cloud Strife
Series: Hard Boiled [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2160477
Comments: 55
Kudos: 151
Collections: Cloud and Tifa





	1. Part One - Game of Temptation

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sekiharatae](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sekiharatae/gifts).



> Happy Valentine's Day!!!! (a little early but I couldn't help it).
> 
> I wanted to do something different for Valentine's Day, and I realized I LOVE erotic thrillers and detective noir, and I got the dumb idea to try to pull something off like that with Cloti. Valentine's Day seemed like the perfect opportunity for that. 
> 
> This story takes inspiration from films like, but not limited to: Sliver, Basic Instinct, The Big Sleep, The Maltese Falcon, Double Indemnity, Sea of Love, American Psycho, and more I can't think of cause my brain is plugged full of shit.
> 
> This was supposed to be a one-shot, but apparently, I am a self-inflicting sadist. I left the chapter count open, but I don't expect this to run more than 2-3 parts. (god please)
> 
> At any rate, a huge thank you to Spaceodementia for supporting me and beta'ing, she is fab. No way would I do any of this crazy shit without her. She is my enabler lmao.
> 
> And big thank yous to my fandom friends, especially iaintyourbro and passtheprosecco, as well as all my friends on twitter who show me so much love (opal, peachi, sticky, PW, rose... the list goes on and on, I wish could name you all!) thank you all so much!!!!
> 
> This fic is a gift for Sekiharatae who is just the bomb diggity (why am I so corny?) and @hityeahmiss, I know you like your crime fiction, so here ya go 💜
> 
> Hope you all enjoy.

Valentine’s Day Massacre

* * *

**Part One - Game of Temptation**

[  **ν** ] - ε **γλ** \- 2021 | February 14th

5:07 AM

Alexander Building - Sector0, Midgar

Cloud Strife stepped out of his black sedan, staring up at the gleaming glass windows of the exclusive Alexander Building in Sector0, taking a final puff on his cigarette before tossing it to the sidewalk with a flick of his fingertips. He rubbed the back of his neck, catching the flashing lights of the Public Security cruisers that were parked in front of the building, casting blue and red glows into the twilight-hued sky, reflecting their blended purple hues across the glass facade of the front of the building.

The sides of his temple were still flaring with a dull throb from the whiskey-induced sleep he’d only roused himself from less than an hour ago, a hangover pulsing the sides of his temple. It was just after five o’clock that morning, and the sunrise was beginning to leak through the darkness, casting shadows across the concrete as the Alexander tower loomed above in steely resistance. Adjusting the gold cufflinks on the sleeves of his white dress shirt, he smoothed down his black tweed vest, reaching into the car and grabbing his jacket from the backseat, pulling his arms through it before rolling his shoulders and adjusting his collar.

He glanced up at the apartment building, tipping his chin back as he traced its stretch seventy stories into the sky, piercing the coming sunrise above with its shining spires of steel. The Alexander was the tallest luxury hi-rise apartment complex in all of Midgar, owned by the eminent and ubiquitous Shinra Power and Electric Company.

Exhaling a short puff of air, Cloud lowered his blue eyes from the building’s stretch into the heavens, irises glowing with the faint drip of mako he had been infected with when he entered the Academy. As he mapped the erection of steel and glass and concrete with his stare, he absently considered that a murder here of all places was far from a good thing.

Dropping his hands into his pockets, he stepped away from his vehicle in a long stride, his wingtips clicking lightly against the pavement as he approached the front doors of the building. Already, he could see the yellow tape that was pulled taut across the glass, blocking the approach of onlookers who hovered with interest along the perimeter of the sidewalk beyond the building, trying to get a glimpse at the bustle of police activity that had generated out front. As Cloud approached, he was greeted by a pair of Public Security officers who were blocking the entrance, rifles guarding their chests.

“Sir,” one of the grunts stopped him at once. “This is an active crime scene. It’s off-limits to the public at the moment.”

Cloud started to open his mouth, but the second officer at his side was stepping forward, shoving the first out of the way.

“Dumbass,” he chastised. “You can proceed, Detective Strife. Fair is waiting for you on the 60th Floor.”

Cloud nodded, pushing through the two grunts without giving them another thought. He ducked under bright yellow barricade tape and made his way into The Alexander.

The complex’s main lobby, lined with argent and black encrusted walls and stunning, burgundy carpeting, was abandoned with the exception of a few other officers milling about the space, drinking paper cups of coffee and chatting in light tones with their hands on the butts of their guns. Cloud largely ignored them, letting his eyes pass back and forth over the lobby as he made his way toward the elevators, pulling a hand out of his pocket only long enough to press the button to call it to the 60th Floor.

The elevator was glass-encased and offered a beautiful view of the city of Midgar below, great expanses of the metropolis’ multitudes of skyscrapers and residential neighborhoods, its powerful mako reactors burning bright gusts of green mist into the sky. Cloud watched the scene stretch out beyond him as he moved higher and higher, disinterested in the sprawl of wealth and technological progress that was laid out before him.

He leaned his head back with a sigh as he waited for the ascent to complete, his tufts of golden-blonde hair floating around his face as he shifted, his skull still living with a muted ache. Part of him was already itching for another drink and a cigarette, anything to make getting through what was looking to be a long day more tolerable.

The elevator groaned an audible buzz when it reached its destination, and Cloud stepped out onto the floor, facing a narrow, winding hallway that was lined with rows of deeply spaced apartments. More grunts milled about in the hallways, along with a few other higher-ranking officers in dark red uniforms, all of them appearing surly and on edge, looking up at the ding of the elevators and trailing him with their eyes as he approached.

“Where’s the scene?” he asked a uniform with a scarlet helmet pulled low over his face, his chest plated with additional rounds for his semiautomatic weapon.

“The last unit on the left, Detective,” the officer answered. “60F. Fair is waiting for you there, along with Highwind.”

“The Captain is here?” Cloud responded, so unnerved by this information that he was forced to stop, narrowing his eyes at the officer.

“This is a big one,” was all the officer said with a light shrug. 

Cloud kept his expression unreadable as he made his way down the hall, finding apartment 60F just to his left, the plush, cream-colored carpet soft and sinking like quicksand beneath his shoes. He found the door slightly ajar, and already, he could hear the bustle of the crime scene inside, officers and personnel chatting away as he pushed open the door.

“Strife,” he heard his name called immediately.

He turned, eyes sweeping across the spacious living room and its oversized leather couches and abstract paintings hung on the walls, floor-to-ceiling windows facing a patio and Midgar beyond. He found his partner, Detective Zack Fair, standing by the glass, jacket-less with his sleeves rolled up to his elbows.

“Where the hell you been, man? I rang you an hour ago.”

Cloud shrugged nonchalantly, ignoring his question. “What’s going on here?”

Zack made a face at him, running his fingers through his dark mess of hair. “We’ve got four bodies, all men. High profile Shinra executives or employees. We’ve managed to keep this news from leaking to the press for the last couple of hours, but that won’t last much longer. It’s a complete bloodbath.”

“Cause of death?”

“Gunshot wounds to the heart, but all from behind,” Zack answered, pulling at a light stubble on his chin. “This apartment belonged to one of the vics, Reeve Tuesti, who was apparently hosting a cocktail hour with a bunch of the other executives. We have one potential witness, a woman, who lives next door and claims she was on her stoop when the execution went down. She won’t say much, though - seems a little shaken.”

“I’ll talk to her,” Cloud said without giving it much more thought beyond that.

“You want to see the bodies?” Zack asked. 

“Yeah, sure.”

Zack started to turn away, but he reared back and leaned into Cloud. “And listen. The Captain has been all over this tonight, and he’s in a shitty mood. Try not to rile him up even further.”

Cloud just shrugged, not intending to make any promises.

Zack pursed his lips together, turning and gesturing for Cloud to follow him to the balcony just beyond the cool stretch of windows.

Detective Cloud Strife, now in his tenth year on the Shinra Public Security Force, had been partnered with Zack Fair ever since they both had been promoted from the ranks of patrol officers five years ago to detectives. In their years together as investigators on Shinra’s elite Homicide Division, Cloud and Zack had worked on over three dozen cases together in that time. Their rate of success was high, too - extraordinarily high, in fact - and because of it, they were often assigned to high-profile murder cases, not unlike the one Cloud had been called to tonight.

Unlike him, though, Zack, two years older than Cloud, was a company man and thoroughly dedicated to justice and the law, despite how gritty and ugly their work sometimes got. Tall with deep black hair and bright, piercing sky-blue eyes, Zack was handsome and affable. He could work a crime scene with finesse, and his charming and easygoing nature could reassure even the hardest of suspects. And Zack was settled down, a family man with a wife and two kids at home.

Cloud, on the other hand, was a little rougher around the edges. Quiet and withdrawn, Zack was the only one in the department he could hold longer than a five-minute conversation with, much less get on with the fraternal manner that most of the force did. He was patronizing and disagreeable with his superiors, often preferring to handle things his own way, which frequently got him in trouble. And he was not the type to treat a crime scene or a suspect or even a witness with the kind of delicacy and diplomacy that the Shinra Public Security Force preferred, intent to get the root of a case and crack it wide open in any manner in which he had to, much to Zack’s chagrin.

The problem with all of this, Cloud had been warned over and over again by his superiors, was that he could hardly give a shit.

At twenty-nine years old, he was already considering an early retirement from the force, numb from the blood and pale faces and wide, lifeless eyes that stared up at him from a victim whenever they were found cold against the concrete in one of Midgar’s alleyways or, in the case of tonight’s crime, on the cool facade of a luxury apartment complex. There had been a time when he had been thrilled by the prospect of uncovering the trail of clues that led him to the perpetrators behind the grisly killings in the city - whether they be premeditated and calculated acts of vengeance, hot and unpredictable crimes of passion, or full-blown, gruesome massacres against innocents in voiceless acts of evil. Now, though, he was tired and going through the motions, finding his personal life outside of work stagnant as he grew older, the only fire behind his career the satisfaction of being right about one of his hunches.

Unlike Zack, his personal life was facing an even greater crisis than his professional one.

Cloud stepped onto the balcony, greeted by a cool gust of wind that tore through his hair, the February chills stinging him through his jacket. The sun was creeping higher along the rim of the horizon, threatening daybreak with every minute that passed. Beyond, the sky was still a dark purple, now lit up with the hints of orange and pink along its borders, the alternating gusts of green mako light filtering into its ether a splash of rainbow lights that refracted against the cool glow in his irises.

Zack held out an arm, gesturing to the crime scene that was laid out in front of them. The balcony was wide and vast, enough to comfortably accommodate two large, round glass dining tables. They were both splattered with droplets of rich, thick red blood. Cloud stepped around them, careful to keep his shoes out of any residue. They were fairly new, and blood had a tendency to seep into leather.

The opulence of the patio was kind of disgusting, Cloud realized as he observed, falling in step behind Zack again. In fact, this entire building was an exercise in extreme decadence, down to its marble hallways and Wutain carpets and endless seas of glass windows, apartments that could swallow his own in Sector2 thirty times over. 

“This is a fuckin’ disaster.”

Cloud heard the swear as he approached, but not before he was greeted by the thick, noxious odor of menthol. Coming up beside where Zack now stood with his hands on his hips, Cloud looked up to find police Captain Cid Highwind standing at the edge of a line of bodies, peering over the grotesque display with his cigarette dangling from his lips.

Cloud leaned forward with an eyebrow raised, and he had to agree with Cid’s gruff assessment, this  _ was _ pretty bad.

The four men - all well dressed in expensive, tailored business attire, were sprawled face-down, their bodies twisted on the balcony’s grand porcelain tile, a muted shade of ivory that was beginning to shimmer beneath the rising sunlight. From Cloud’s vantage point, they were all relatively young and good-looking guys, a few of them even recognizable. He instantly identified Reeve Tuesti by his head of thick dark hair and his full black goatee, laying lifeless with his neck twisted to one side, his mouth hanging open as if prepared to speak. Less than half a foot away lay the other three men, all also wearing suits.

“Who the hell would want to execute four of Shinra’s top brass?” Cid continued to complain, shaking his head back and forth. “Especially the Director of Urban Planning? The guy was about as harmless as a nest of baby chocobos.”

“There’s gotta be a motive behind all of this,” Zack pointed out.

Cloud maneuvered around Reeve, careful to avoid stepping in the pools of blood that had leaked around the bodies. Crime scene analysts had already begun to lay out the markers around the bodies, but the mess was streaming in a long river that was headed for the glass edge of the balcony. Cloud leaned over and stared at the back of the head of a red-haired man in a black suit. Judging from the intricate details of his waistcoat, he was a high-ranking member of an elite squadron, which explained why he might be at a party like this.

“Who are the rest of them?” Cloud asked, hands dropping back into his pockets as he continued to circle the four poor, lifeless saps on the ground.

Highwind pulled his cigarette from his lips with a sneer, turning to Zack. “Fair, didn’t you brief him before you brought him out here? I swear, the pair of you behave like a couple of goddamn rookies sometimes!”

This kicked Zack quickly into gear, and he was focusing his attention fully on Cloud now, standing upright at attention as he reported the quick details of the case to him.

“Director Tuesti was hosting a small cocktail party last night with a group of Shinra’s top executives, higher-level staffers and leadership, and a few high-ranking members of the military. From what we understand, most of the crowd had filtered out by two-thirty AM - for whatever reason, only the four remained. We got the call at three-fifty from the woman next door, who says she came out to get some air on her own balcony when she observed the suspect execute Tuesti last. The other three men - Tseng Taikoro, Reno Ferrari, and Rude Johnson, are all members of Shinra’s General Affairs Division.”

“The Turks?” Cloud said, slightly incredulous, crouching down in front of the bodies.

Cid Highwind groaned audibly at this. “Heidegger is gonna have my fuckin’ head.”

Cloud ignored this comment, not paying Cid any mind, even when he began to pace back and forth along the line of the windows, hurriedly expelling puffs from his cigarette into the air. Instead, he reached into the inner breast pocket of his jacket and pulled out a pen, using it to gently nudge at the white collar of Reno’s dress shirt.

“There’s red lipstick smudged on this,” he pointed out.

Cid dropped his arms in frustration. “No shit, jackass. There’s red lipstick on all of them. Earrings, too. If you’da been here on time, you woulda known that.”

Cloud glanced up at him, something nasty on the tip of his tongue, but he suppressed it.

“Earrings?”

Cid appeared completely exasperated by the query, and before he could go off, Zack stepped in.

“Diamonds,” Zack interjected. “Each vic had a diamond teardrop earring tucked behind their left ear.” 

“Don’t fuck up the evidence,” Cid chastised, grating across Cloud’s already worn nerves even more.

“They were all shot through the heart, so with the lipstick smears, made for a helluva interesting calling card. Forensics is getting ready to take them to the lab. Naturally, we suspect a woman was behind this,” Zack added.

“Maybe,” Cloud conceded softly, using his pen to shove a wild tuft of Reno’s messy red hair out of the way, catching the glittering earring laid across the back of his skull.

Cloud studied the jewel for a moment before rising again to his full height, tucking his pen back into his jacket. He stared down again at the display of limbs and blood and freshly pressed silk shirts and leather shoes. “Those entry wounds are substantial. At least a .500 caliber round.”

“We’ll know more once the coroner is done here,” Zack added. “Need to run ballistics. But if you can tell by the spray and the leak, the damage was done by a revolver with some serious rounds in it.”

“Listen to me,” Captain Highwind interceded then. “Strife, Fair, this case takes top priority. Once the press gets wind of this, our department is finished and fucked if we don’t solve this and bring it to justice quickly. Already, Heiddegar has called me twice, the President is so far up his ass.”

“Do we have a list of everyone who was at this cocktail party tonight?” Cloud asked, ignoring Cid’s bluster.

“Working on it,” Zack responded.

“And the woman next door is the only one who was still around when this happened?”

Cid nodded, lighting a fresh stick of tobacco. “As far as we can tell at the present moment. The analysts are pulling the security footage from the building now. Listen, nobody sleeps for the next week or however long it takes to get some answers. A set of killings like this is gonna unsettle the entire Shinra Corporation by dawn, and the rest of the city of Midgar by noon. We work round the clock.”

“Where is she?” Cloud asked, blowing past Cid’s demands.

“She’s next door with an officer,” Zack replied. “You want to take care of her while I finish up here?”

Cloud tossed a final caustic glance at the bodies of the men on the ground, watching as another pair of crime scene investigators in dark parkas arrived, alongside the coroner. He stared at the dead men, forever lifeless, their essences stolen from them and now simple wisps that had drifted into the eternal, emerald firmaments of the Lifestream.

“Yeah, alright.”

“Don’t fuck this up, Strife,” Highwind warned, blowing a severe billow of smoke in his direction. “I mean it. Now isn’t the time for any of your shenanigans.”

But Cloud only smirked, his hands back in his pockets as he tipped his head at Zack and then stepped around the corpses, departing the balcony just as the sun began to rise.

* * *

[  **ν** ] - ε **γλ** \- 2021 |February 14th

5:58 AM

Alexander Building - Sector0, Midgar - Apt 60D

Cloud knocked twice on the door to apartment 60D, waiting for a moment before he pushed lightly on its wood, finding it already cracked open. He stepped inside, only to have a Shinra Public Security Officer whirl on him with his rifle at the ready.

“Oh - Detective Strife,” the grunt breathed, lowering his weapon. Cloud could see the line of sweat escape across his forehead, and it dug under his skin a little how some of these rookies in the field were such constant nervous wrecks.

“Where’s the woman who witnessed the homicide next door?” he asked, skipping over formalities. “I need to speak with her.”

“She’s in her kitchen,” the officer replied, swallowing back thickly. “She - she’s very upset with me for being here. She’s  _ mean _ . She tried to throw me out four times, b-but I stayed put, sir.”

Cloud didn’t care about any of this. “What’s her name?”

“Uh…”

“Never mind,” Cloud interrupted before he could go any further, stepping through the apartment and making his way for the kitchen.

Like the apartment next door, it was plush and palatial, though its decor was somewhat more rustic and homely than the polished harshness of Reeve Tuesti’s. The warm colors and soft fabrics and simple but inviting arrangements of crystalline figures - chocobos and Bomb monsters and dolphins - on the mantle of the faux fireplace all gave it a feminine and lived-in warmth. He let his eyes sweep across the room, drinking it in as he sauntered into the witness’ kitchen.

Much as any other room in these luxury flats, the kitchen was oversized and overindulgent, gleaming pale-blue tile under brilliant fluorescent skylights, a wide, oak-wood island in the center of it, surrounded by retro-styled barstool seating. Every appliance in the space gleamed and sparkled under the shine of the light overhead, everything looking so clean it was as if none of it had ever been used.

He found her leaning over the kitchen’s island, her hand wrapped around a mug of coffee that was releasing steam into the atmosphere above. As soon as Cloud laid eyes on her from the threshold, he found himself instantly arrested by her, frozen in place as his eyes widened slightly at the sight in front of him, not at all what he had been expecting when he set foot into that kitchen. Her hair was a long, dark drape that bordered her entire form, hanging low past her hips, a gleaming shade of black beneath the sharp white lighting and the rise of the sun beyond the blinds. It flowed around the cascade of her body, a winding, curving road that ran from narrow shoulders to her full, voluptuous hips, her rear round and full and accentuated by the way she leaned forward as if offering it for an eager touch. Her legs were endlessly long and perfectly sculpted, lean and muscular in a way that portrayed some hidden power behind them. And all of this was on display for him in the short, deep-magenta negligee that she wore, the curves of her ample bosom only shielded by the silk shawl she wore draped over her shoulders.

Her state of undress and the feminine preciseness of her form was enough to have him forget why he was standing in the doorway of her kitchen, but that was nothing compared to her face.

She was easily the most beautiful woman he could recall seeing in recent memory - that was the instant thought that assailed him as soon as his eyes fell on her. She wasn’t facing in his direction - was staring at the window across the room, sharing only the profile of her face - but it was enough to force Cloud to remind himself internally - over and over again - that he was here on duty and that he needed to focus. Her face was perfectly heart-shaped, her skin smooth and pale, her lips full and her nose pert. Her lashes were a dark curl against her cheeks, contrasting with the sharp, severe arches of her eyebrows. She turned from the window to stare down into her mug, seemingly oblivious to his sudden appearance, and because of it, he couldn’t make out her eyes.

“Ma’am?” he finally choked out, once he had swallowed and wet his throat enough to speak, pushing down the tempest of attraction that had suddenly unfurled itself low in the center of his belly at the mere sight of this strange woman.

She looked up at the sound of his voice, and Cloud worried that somehow, it was bouncing thunderously loud in an echo across the tile and aluminum surfaces of her kitchen. Her eyes widened and then narrowed when she turned to him, and finally, he caught their shade, instantly caught off guard by the bright glimmers and deep cuts of jewels inside of her irises.

They were the color of summer strawberries, deep, reflective pools of ruby red that seemed to absorb all of the light in the room when they brightened in his direction. He felt his lower lip drop half an inch when hers connected with his, and for a moment, he felt a snake wrap itself tight around his wits, constricting and rendering him momentarily senseless.

“Yes?” she answered, finally standing up straighter and facing him completely. At her full height, her curves were even more well defined, and she seemed somewhat unaware of the way that the neckline of her lingerie dipped dangerously low, exposing a sharp dip of cleavage and the milky, swelled tops of her breasts. As Cloud’s brain was just beginning to process this, she folded her arms under them, pushing them up higher and only making their alluring fullness more apparent, highlighting the abrupt indent of her waist and the round jut of her hips.

Cloud worked through the night’s fog to fling the distraction out of his mind. He had seen and worked around plenty of beautiful women before, some of them even enchantingly so, and he had always been able to maintain a calm, cool sense of professionalism and detachment. He’d never let any of them distract him from the work at hand, whether he’d brought them to his bed at some point or the other or not.

“I apologize for the intrusion at this hour, ma’am,” he finally replied, reaching into the pocket beneath his vest for his badge. He pulled it out and flashed it at her, holding it up just long enough for her eyes to narrow even further as she studied it. He tucked it back away and took a few steps closer to her into the kitchen, closing the gap between them until they were less than two feet apart. “My name is Detective Cloud Strife, with the Midgar Public Security’s Homicide Division.”

He stepped even closer to her, maintaining a respectable distance as he offered her his hand, but close enough that he could pick up her scent. It was light but fragrant, sweet but floral.

Intoxicating, was what it was, a blend of jasmine and cherry blossom and molten vanilla.

“Tifa Lockhart,” she finally responded, her voice richer and lower than he’d expected it, lifting her hand and dropping it into his.

Her skin was soft, but as he wrapped his palm around hers, he realized that her knuckles were rough in a way that struck him as odd, especially for a woman who the rest of her oozed pure femininity and gentleness. Her nails were manicured in long, perfectly shaped ovals, their shade matching her eyes and the remnants of a lipstick that had faded away hours ago but was still smudged into those pouty lips, traces of it lining the rim of her mug.

A deep, scarlet red.

He made a mental note of this, realizing almost too late that he had held onto her hand for far longer than was necessary. He quickly released it, and she dropped it to lie across the front of her thigh, almost between her legs.

“It’s nice to meet you, Detective Strife,” she added on, and he realized her voice was not only low but that it was husky, and that every word was punctuated by a gentle lilt that somehow made it seem innocent and syrupy within the same inflection. “I wasn’t expecting them to send someone so handsome to talk to me.”

Cloud felt his cheeks begin to rush and swell with heat, but he tossed his head as cavalierly as he could, shoving her words quickly to the side. He’d dealt with the public, and women especially, enough to know when to ignore their charms and flirtations in order to get straight away to business.

“I appreciate that, Ms. Lockhart,” he answered instead, offering her a hint of an easygoing smile, enough to placate her but guarded enough to keep her at bay. “I need to ask you a few questions about what you saw tonight. Do you mind if I sit down?”

She studied his face for a moment, and Cloud was certain that he saw her eyes fall to his lips before she licked her own and then flashed her gaze back up to his.

“By all means,” she replied, gesturing to the barstool beside him.

Cloud nodded in agreement, carefully hiking up his pants legs so that he could slide onto the seat across from her. As he reached into his jacket for his notebook and pen, he couldn’t tear his eyes off of the way that she shimmied onto her own seat, her hips sliding over it as she adjusted herself with a tug at the hem of her negligee, facing openly in his direction as she crossed one leg over the other at the knee. In the process, her long, pale leg became centered between his open stance, her calf almost touching his inner knee.

Cloud could feel the heat simmering between them, and he couldn’t be sure if it was radiating off of him or her, but it was there, and it was suddenly becoming suffocating. He reached up and pulled on his necktie, loosening it a little, suddenly feeling it grow hotter and hotter in this kitchen, just as Tifa tossed her hair over her shoulders.

Her eyes were following the movement of his hands, trailing the way that they tugged at fabric and then dropped to his notebook to flip it open to a blank page as he popped the ink of his pen against her counter. He was acutely aware of her stare, and Cloud worked desperately to ignore it, but he could feel the sharp poke of nails in the back of his throat when he cleared it again to speak.

“Ms. Lockhart,” he began, “Why don’t you start by telling me about your evening. Can you tell me what happened here tonight? What you saw?”

Tifa offered him a hint of a smile, then tore her eyes away from him finally, staring down at her hands, which were centered in her lap. “Mr. Tuesti was holding a cocktail party for employees at Shinra last night,” she began to explain, her voice suddenly much smaller than it had been moments ago. “He was celebrating some new real estate negotiations that The Urban Planning and Development Department had been a part of, and so he had invited a number of us over for drinks.”

“Us?” Cloud repeated, trying not to get distracted by the way she began to roll her ankle beside his calf, a downward glance confirming that she was barefoot and that her toenails were painted, matching her fingers.

“I work for Shinra as well,” Tifa confirmed. “I am a contract lawyer. I only started there a few weeks ago, right around the time I moved into this apartment.”

Cloud noted that into his notebook, the back of his mind suddenly picturing Tifa Lockhart in a skirt suit, arguing with another lawyer in front of a judge. It was at that moment that he became painfully aware of the erection he was suddenly living with.

“So you’re new here?” he asked, trying to stay on track.

“Mhm,” she responded, nodding her head so that the black rivers of her hair tumbled around her shoulders. “I moved here from Junon a few months ago. I was working at the Shinra offices there for the Vice President.”

“Rufus?” Cloud asked, his interest piqued as he looked up at her. That had been the same amount of time that had passed since President Shinra had passed away from a massive stroke, leaving his thirty-year-old son, Rufus Shinra, in charge of the company.

“Mhm,” Tifa answered again, tilting her head to one side, her eyes sweeping over Cloud’s torso. “I was his personal lawyer.”

He tried to ignore the graze of her stare as his brain began to process the information he was digesting. He, just as well as anyone, knew that Rufus Shinra lived on the penthouse floor of the Alexander Building, had moved in after assuming the seat of power. Ever since, the tabloids had been filled with rumors of his exploits in the secretive, luxurious bachelor pad he owned there, women parading through in endless carousels, booze-filled and drug-addled nights that raged far beyond when the sun was brightening the sky.

The thought of this beautiful woman working so closely with a man like that had something in his blood slightly astir with displeasure.

“You no longer serve as his personal attorney?” he asked, unable to cease this line of questioning. “You said you’re in contracts now.”

“We had… some disagreements,” Tifa responded after a moment. “But what does this have to do with these horrible killings?”

“Was Rufus at this party tonight?”

Tifa let out a low, sultry laugh that originated deep in her belly, and Cloud dropped his eyes to the center of her torso without intending to, catching the way the deep, purple-pink silk of her nightdress rippled over the flesh there with her movements. Once again, he found his mind drifting to places it should not.

“No,” she finally chortled. “Rufus was not fond of Reeve, and he would never be caught dead spending his time with lower-tiered executives or inferiors.”

Cloud scribbled this into his notepad, filing the mention of Rufus away to his memory for now.

“What else can you tell me about this party, Ms. Lockhart?” he asked, moving on.

“There were several other executives there,” she explained. “Scarlet from Weapons, Palmer from Space, even Heiddegar from Public Security - along with the Turks, and employees from Reeve’s offices and a few others. All in all, maybe twenty-five, thirty people. It was a nice party, I suppose, if not a little boring. But then, parties really aren’t my way of having fun, Detective Strife.”

Her tone had taken on the note of honey again, and Cloud shifted uncomfortably on his stool, the pain in his groin tight. “What time did you leave?” he asked her.

“It was close to two.”

“Were the others still there?”

“Mostly,” she answered. “I was one of the first to leave. But I live right next door, and I could hear people leaving for a good while after that. Seemed everyone left after two, I would say.”

Cloud wrote this down, the gears in his head spinning.

“Why did you go out onto your balcony at four AM, Ms. Lockhart?”

She looked away from him then, a pained expression crossing her face. He noticed that she began to wring her fingers in her hands, twisting them over one another nervously. He kept his face unreadable, though he made a mental note of the shift in her body language.

“I couldn’t sleep,” she finally admitted. “I… it’s been lonely for me, living in this big city by myself. I haven’t been able to get used to it. My place in Junon was so small compared to this. Anyway, I just needed to get some air… and when I stepped outside…”

Cloud leaned forward, dropping the notepad back on the counter. The closer he drew, the more of the savory warmth he could feel between them, the more of her sweet scents he could inhale, and suddenly, his palms were itching as he fought off the urge to reach forward and touch her, to drop his hand to her knee in consolation.

“I… I turned to see the men lined up on the balcony. I thought it was so odd, the way that they were standing, all stiff as boards, facing the sky. It was dark, so I couldn’t tell who they were - but then I saw the arm raise from the shadows, and then the muffled shots, all four of them dropping to the ground. It… it was horrible.”

She turned away again, shaking her head, her bottom lip trembling, and now, Cloud really was fighting a desperate desire to get his hands on her.

“Muffled?” he repeated, trying to hold his senses together in one piece.

“Yes, like in the movies…” she replied. “Like, with a silencer.”

Cloud reached over and wrote this down, finding it an interesting but critical detail. He turned back to Tifa.

“Did you see the shooter?” he asked her. “Could you provide a description?”

“No,” Tifa answered, her voice choked. “It was dark, and they were in the shadows. I could only see the four men - and I only knew it was Reeve and the Turks when the floodlight came on. But there was no one there by then, and I was too shocked to even realize what had happened.

“Male?” Cloud pushed her. “Female?”

“I don’t know,” Tifa nearly sobbed in response.

Cloud resisted the urge to sigh, sliding his notepad shut before returning it to the inner pocket of his jacket. He leveled his gaze with Tifa’s again, his eyes running into hers, and he looked her over, his eyes dropping down to her legs, his behavior once again compelled by instinct and not by his good senses.

Finally, he dragged himself to his feet, dipping a hand into his pocket for his card. He dropped it on her counter and slid it toward her.

“Alright, Ms. Lockhart,” he told her. “I think that will be enough for tonight. If you think of anything else, please don’t hesitate to give me a direct call. My PHS number is on that card.”

“You can call me Tifa, Detective,” was all she said in response.

Cloud couldn’t stop himself from watching the way she slid off of her stool, her body moving with the grace and fluidity of a ballet dancer, only managing to highlight and accentuate the peaks and valleys of her body. She offered him a coquettish simper, and for the wildest reasons that he could not understand, he found himself smirking back.

“Yeah, okay,” he conceded, his eyes still fixated on her and her skimpy, silky, lacy nightclothes that were such a vivid swath of color against her buttercream skin. “Try to get some rest, Tifa.”

He turned away from her before she could say another word to him, feeling the heat pool throughout his body at the realization that he had just given in to her request and was referring to her by her first name.

He quit her kitchen and made his way to the front door of her apartment. The patrol officer had already vacated. Cloud reached for her door, but she was quickly behind him, stepping around him to block his exit with all of her softness and sugar and curves and heat.

“Thank you for taking the time to talk to me tonight, Detective,” she breathed, her voice just a decibel above a whisper, caught deep in the center of her throat. “I… was very frightened by what I saw tonight. I feel much better. It’s nice to know there’s law enforcement out there who really do care.”

She was so close to him that he could feel her breath skirt against his collarbone, right over the knot of his tie, burning straight through the crisp fabric of his shirt. Now standing face to face, he realized that she hovered just a few inches shorter than him, leaving her at the perfect height for an embrace, where he could tuck her head against his shoulder, or maybe drop his lips to hers.

_ What the fuck is your problem, Strife. _

“Happy to be of service,” he responded, keeping a cool edge to his tone, reaching for the door again.

“Oh,” she stopped him once more, dropping a hand to his bicep, burning all the way through the material of his jacket and his dress shirt beneath and sending another heatwave through his chest.

“Hm?”

“Happy Valentine’s Day, Detective.”

She finally moved out of his way, opening the door for him to exit. As he departed her apartment, just as he turned away from her and finally tore away from those deep, sparkling pools of crimson, his eyes caught the sparkle of her silver teardrop earring against her throat, just as she closed the door behind him.

* * *

[ ν ] - εγλ - 2021 | February 14th

9:38 AM

Sector0 Public Security Precinct - Homicide Division

Cloud was sitting at his desk inside of the Sector0 Public Security precinct, the department’s bustle of officers and investigators milling about through the detective’s bureau, already on his third cup of black coffee that morning. He was staring at the photographs of the four dead Shinra brass that had been delivered from the coroner’s investigators just an hour prior. He had been studying them since they’d arrived at his desk, flipping through them over and over again, looking into the chilled, vacant eyes of Reeve, Tseng, Reno, and Rude, trying to determine why anyone would kill all four of them in cold blood, on Valentine’s Day, no less.

Despite the amount of caffeine he’d ingested in a short bit of time that morning, Cloud’s headache from the previous night’s abuses was still assaulting his temples, making it difficult to concentrate. He was running on fumes and less than three hours of sleep, his stomach void of anything but the department’s stale coffee and the remnants of the bourbon he’d spent drinking late into the night. After leaving the crime scene at the Alexander, he and Zack returned to the precinct, pouring over their notes while they waited for returns from ballistics and forensics.

Staring at the scattered photographs of the men on his desk, observing the rivers of blood that lined their bodies and the thick, rotund gunshot wounds that burned ugly holes through their pristine suits, Cloud tried to shake the distraction from his brain. He was still caught up thinking about their sole witness - the beautiful, illustrious, raven-haired Tifa Lockhart - who he’d interviewed the night before. If it weren’t for her, he realized, he would never have even remembered that it was Valentine’s Day.

It wasn’t a holiday he had much use for, anyway.

Still, his thoughts were caught up in tangles over her. Living in a city like Midgar, there were always pretty women to spare, and they hung around uniform-types the way that bees clung to honey. They frequented the officer dives where the detectives and the lieutenants drank away their stresses of the job between shifts; they hovered around the perimeters of crime scenes, eager for both a hot take on the crime as well as hot take on an eligible bachelor with a nine-to-five and a guaranteed pension.

Cloud never paid much attention to them. A few of them he’d bought drinks for and let loose his own urges on, but he always left their beds cold before sunrise, or sent them from his own with no promises of another rendezvous. One night stands were all he was interested in committing himself to, and that was only when he was losing control of his most basic instincts.

Tifa Lockhart, he was realizing as he sat at his desk in a fog of preoccupation, was inspiring different sensations in his mako-addled blood. The burn was different somehow; it was blended with a genuine curiosity and a pulse of desire that was connected to something both blood-rushing and heart-pounding, inspired by the glimmer in her eyes and the sad, lost notes behind her voice as much as it was the sultry shape of her body and the pout of her lips.

“Whatcha got there?”

Cloud had been daydreaming about the milky expanse of her thighs under that bright fuschia nighty when Zack appeared, shoving aside some untouched folders as he took a seat on Cloud’s desk. He looked up at him, finding Zack with his jacket off again and his sleeves once again rolled up to his elbows, his tie gone and his collar open and disheveled.

Cloud sat back in his seat, discarding Tifa somewhere to the back of his mind. He dropped the photograph of Tseng he was holding in hand onto the pile of the others that had gathered.

“Just looking at some of these photos from the coroner’s office,” Cloud responded, crossing his hands behind his head. “Don’t really tell me much, other than what I already knew. I was able to confirm that the time of death was about three-thirty, give or take. Any word on ballistics?”

“You were right about the bullet,” Zack replied, picking up a materia-shaped paperweight from Cloud’s desk and bouncing it back and forth between his hands. “.500 caliber, blew straight through those poor bastards like a cannonball.”

Cloud reached for the report that had been delivered with the photographs from the coroner’s office. He skimmed a few lines until he found what he was looking for.

“Each victim shot at close range. Bullets tore through cardiac and arterial mass, completely obliterating heart tissue and fascia and killing victims almost instantly.”

“Fuck,” Zack commented.

“Yeah,” Cloud agreed. He dropped the report with a sigh, finding the information intriguing but not altogether useful. It certainly wasn’t bringing them any closer to a suspect or a viable lead.

“You get the security footage from the hallway outside of Tuesti’s apartment?”

Zack set the paperweight down. “Yeah, looked it over with Biggs this morning. Turns out the apartment emptied around two AM, all except for the vics, the witness next door - that woman, Lockhart - and two blondes. They left closer to three, but not together.”

Cloud’s heart picked up a pace at the mention of Tifa, remembering his inquiry with her the night before.

“Lockhart told me she left around two,” Cloud said.

“Well, she’s lying,” Zack countered, “Or she can’t tell time very well. Either way, I think the three of them are cause for concern.”

Cloud pondered this, reaching for his notepad and jotting this down under the list of notes he’d already created under Tifa’s name.

“What I don’t get is,” Zack began, shifting his weight on Cloud’s desk, “If they all left before three, how does that place them at the murder scene at the time of death?”

Cloud just glared at him, wishing he’d get his ass off of his desk. “It means they could still be in the building,” Cloud responded. “There are multiple other access points to the balconies aside from directly inside of the apartment in the building. Did you have the analysts run the other security footage?”

“Good call,” Zack admitted, “But good thing I’m one step ahead of you on that one, partner. Turns out the remaining cameras on floors 58 through 62 were all conveniently out last night. The only camera that seemed to be in operation was the one in the hallway in front of Tuesti’s apartment.”

Cloud frowned severely, disconcerted by this information. He was opening his mouth to say something in response when Biggs, a dark-haired criminal analyst in their division, approached his desk, his hair askew and his eyes lined with just as many bags as the rest of theirs were from lack of sleep.

“Gentlemen,” he interrupted them. “Captain wants to see you in his office. On the double.”

Cloud groaned, not giving a fuck who heard it, pushing up to his feet. He grabbed his dark gray blazer from where he’d slung it over the back of his chair, shrugging it over his shoulders before he shoved his notepad into the inner pocket, while Zack only laughed at his wordless disagreement, finally sliding off of his desk.

They followed Biggs silently through the Bureau, finding Cid’s office at the end of the hallway, lining the rows of detective and investigator desks that filled the open space against one wall. His door was closed, the blinds shuttered against the glass windows that bordered his office.

Biggs shrugged his way inside without so much as a knock, and they entered to find Captain Highwind standing behind his desk, an obvious look of disagreement painted across his lips. The room was so smoky that Cloud’s eyes burned; he was just as much a smoker as any of them were across the force, but this was ridiculous.

Seated in one chair to the left of the Captain’s desk was a tall, broad-shouldered man with brown skin and a gunarm grafted in place of one hand, his arms crossed over his chest. Much like Cid, he wore an angry look on his face.

Cloud felt his eyes roll almost as soon as he spotted Lieutenant Barret Wallace, already dreading where this meeting was heading.

“Shut the door,” Cid barked as soon as they piled inside.

Cloud closed it behind him after Biggs left them alone, he and Zack lining themselves up in front of the Captain’s desk. Zack was wearing a stupid look on his face, turning to Wallace with a grin.

“Morning, Wallace,” he greeted. “Haven’t seen you since the reactor killings in Sector5 last month.”

Barret grunted in response, but they were all interrupted by the sudden slap of heavy paper against the wood of Cid’s desk, and Cloud turned to see that Cid had dropped a stack of newspapers in front of them.

“Do you believe this shit?” Cid demanded. “Valentine’s Day Massacre? I swear to Ramuh, the press in this town ain’t nothing but a pack of sensationalist wolves. Heiddegar has been calling me non-stop since this rag hit the shelves this morning. All of Midgar and the entire goddamn city is in an uproar, detectives. Even the Shiva-be-damned Mayor called me.”

“Domino?” Zack laughed, but Cid shot him a look so ugly and threatening that he quickly silenced himself.

Cloud ignored all of this, leaning forward to pick up one of the newsprints. Sure enough, the headline of  _ The Midgar Daily Examiner _ screamed in bold, italicized font: “VALENTINE’S DAY MASSACRE - FOUR SHINRA BIGWIGS SLAIN IN LUXURY HI-RISE”. The headline was accompanied by a gruesome photo of the bloody balcony, the photo clearly taken after the bodies had been cleared away, along with four portrait-style photos of the victims - Reeve, Tseng, Reno, and Rude, taken from their official corporate identification photos. Cloud skimmed the first two lines of the article while Cid lit up another cigarette, Zack peering over his shoulder to get a better look.

“Who the hell leaked that photograph?” he wondered.

Cloud shrugged, tossing the newspaper back on Cid’s desk. “This department leaks shit all of the time,” he deadpanned. He glanced back up at Cid, finding the older man’s pale blue eyes ablaze with fury. “We’re working the case, Captain. Why are we here? I don’t need any bad takes from journalists at The Examiner to do my job.”

“Our job,” Zack reminded him with a nudging elbow to his arm.

Cid could barely contain his rage. “This goddamn newspaper is beside the point,” he blasted. “You aren’t moving fast enough. I need this thing cracked in the next forty-eight hours, or Heiddegar is going to feed me to the wolves, and all of your asses in this room will be walking school kids across the street for the rest of your lives.”

“Doesn’t sound like a bad gig,” Zack guffawed quietly at Cloud’s side, causing Cid to slam his open palm against the desk. 

“Goddamnit, Fair!”

Cloud winced, feeling his nerves wear dangerously thin. He shook his head at Cid. “We’re doing our best,” he protested. “The bodies aren’t even cold yet. If you’d just let us do our jobs, maybe we could catch a lead.”

“I’m warning you, Strife,” Cid pointed a finger. “I’ll have none of your antics like on the Genesis case. What a complete debacle that was.”

“In all fairness - “

“Enough,” Cid interrupted him brusquely. He gestured to Lieutenant Wallace, who had remained silent but displeased throughout the conversation. “I’m putting you both under the direction of Wallace for this case. He’ll make sure that there are none of your usual renegade and goofball antics and that you solve this case.” He looked back and forth between Cloud and Zack as he unleashed these descriptors.

Cloud sucked his lips in annoyance against his teeth, but he refused to look directly at Barret. They’d worked a few cases under his direction in the past, and Cloud couldn’t think of a Lieutenant in all of Homicide that he got along with more poorly than Barret Wallace.

“Forty-eight hours,” Barret chuffed from his seat, unfolding his arms and rising to his feet. At his full height, he towered over all of them, even Zack, who was just over six feet tall. “Shouldn’t even take y’all that long. With the evidence already gathered, this is lookin’ to be open and shut.”

“Yeah?” Cloud challenged, now facing in Barret’s direction. “And just how is that?”

Barret took an aggressive step forward, pushing Zack out of the way with a shove to his chest. He tapped a stack of files on the Captain’s desk.

“We’ve got three perps already,” he insisted. “The killer is clearly a woman, leaving behind earrings and lipstick. No prints, so she’s smart. Based on the security footage, it’s one of the three, and they all have motive.”

“Elaborate,” Cloud demanded, crossing his arms over his chest.

Barret narrowed his eyes as if he wanted to say something in response to Cloud’s tone, but he ignored it and opened the file, spreading out the printed profiles of three women - two blondes and one brunette - across the desk. Cid finally took a seat, some of the colored anger finally draining from his face, and Cloud and Zack both glanced at one another before they, too, took seats and finally acquiesced to listening.

Cloud, however, was distracted, staring at the photograph of Tifa Lockhart staring up at him on the desk, her eyes bright red and shining, her lips turned upward in a smirk that seemed to be teasing him from the page.

“First, Scarlet Price,” Barret began. “This is one tough broad. Weapons Director at Shinra. Seen leaving Tuesti’s apartment at 3:07. Wears red lipstick. Motive - known history with Tuesti, rumors of a possible former sexual relationship that turned ugly. Ruthless and cutthroat as a Shinra executive. Fondly described as a power-hungry bitch.”

Cloud leaned forward, staring at the picture of the woman, who was at least in her mid-forties, her blonde hair styled in a graceful updo, tendrils framing her face. Her eyes were piercing yet emotionless, exuding a professional viciousness he could feel even through the photo.

Barret shoved Scarlet out of the way and tapped on the photo of the second blonde. “This is Elena Hancock. A member of the Shinra General Affairs Division, AKA the Turks, one of the last surviving ones now thanks to last night’s events. Also wears red lipstick. Motive - professional rivalry with victim number three, Reno Ferrari - and former romantic relationship with victim number two, Tseng Taikoro, that turned unrequited.”

Cloud was already moving on, his eyes back on Tifa’s photo. “And what about her?” he asked, nodding his head at the final headshot. “I interviewed her last night.”

Barret nodded, using the index finger of his good hand to slide Tifa Lockhart’s photo forward. “This one is a bit odd,” he admitted. “No real motive, aside from her proximity to the vics as a Shinra employee - a contract lawyer who interacts with all of the departments and units within the Shinra organization. Former personal attorney to Rufus Shinra, but when he assumed the seat of power, she ain’t roll over with him, if you catch my drift. Also fond of red lipstick.”

“Why is she a suspect?” Cloud queried, sitting back and feeling exasperated again.

It was Cid’s turn to lean forward and intervene. “Witness to the crime, neighbor to one of the victims, and present at the scene. Not to mention… she lied in her interview with you, didn’t she, Strife? According to your report, she stated she left the Tuesti apartment as early as two AM.”

Cloud only shrugged. “Remains to be determined if she was purposefully lying,” he stated, unsure of why the fuck he was defending her.

Cid seemed mildly amused by this, but in an irritated sort of way. He tapped the photo.

“That earring look familiar to you?”

Cloud just stared at it, noting the silver teardrops that dangled from Tifa Lockhart’s lobes. He was instantly reminded of that same sparkle he had noticed before he left her apartment early that morning, its glitter so close to the most tender stretch of flesh on her throat. He swallowed, feeling his throat dry out and tighten with pain as her image flooded his memory again. 

“Listen up,” Cid then said when both he and Zack remained silent, putting a can on the entire discussion. “I want all three of these women interrogated before lunch. Wallace, you supervise these two idiots and make sure they don’t screw up questioning. Strife, Fair, get your asses out of here and bring these women in.”

“You got it, Cap,” Zack agreed amicably, offering a mock salute into the air.

But Cloud was already at his feet, pulling a cigarette from the holder in his vest, lighting it as he made his way out of the office without waiting for Zack and without another word to his superiors.

* * *

[ ν ] - εγλ - 2021 | February 14th

1:39PM

Sector0 - Alexander Building 

It was past lunch, but Cloud and Zack had only just wrapped up their first two interrogations of the day and were now working on the third. At present, they sat in Zack’s unmarked black cruiser, parked on the curb outside of the Alexander Hi-Rises once again.

They had spent their morning forcing their first two suspects downtown and then interrogating them in connection with the brutal Valentine’s Day Massacre, which was by now the hottest topic in the entire city, trending on social media and on a constant loop on the radio stations and cable news networks. The entire Shinra Corporation had been rocked by the news, its stocks in a free-for-all as the company scrambled to reorganize leadership and operations in the wake of the deaths of some of its highest-profile employees. 

Rufus Shinra had actually been seen shoving a reporter out of his face after they demanded he comment on the situation, before he disappeared inside of a white limousine.

Scarlet Price’s interview had been a complete waste of time. As soon as Cloud and Zack arrived at her office at the Shinra HQ in Sector0, she had instantly demanded a lawyer, and when she had been brought down to the precinct, she was joined by a stiff-faced pettifogger who interrupted and argued on her behalf every time Zack or Cloud tried to pelt her with questions. Cloud, who normally let Zack’s affirming personality set the stage for the interviews with introductory questions before he came in with the heavy hitters, found his patience quickly wearing thin and his temper flaring, and by the time Scarlet was smirking at him victoriously from her seat, the button at the neckline of her crimson dress about to pop from the strain of her breasts, he had decided she was an incomparable bitch and that she was probably guilty as sin for these murders.

Elena Hancock was another matter altogether. She was completely caught off guard by Cloud and Zack’s appearance, and she was nervous but compliant with their questions when they brought her to the precinct. She was largely incoherent as she stuttered through her answers, twisting her fingers over each other in her lap, sweat lining her forehead. Cloud couldn’t tell if she was so jittery because she was guilty or because she was that much of a fucking mess. 

He determined, by the time they sent her on her way, that it was the latter. However sloppily delivered, nothing about her story raised any red flags. Even Barret, who had been monitoring the interrogations from behind the mirrored glass, seemed to think she was a dead end.

“Doubt she could hurt even a wererat,” he commented as Cloud and Zack made their way out of the interrogation room. “Dunno how the hell somebody like that winds up on the Turks.”

At least they’d been able to get a sample of her lipstick when she drank from the soda can they’d offered her, unlike Scarlet, who was clearly too clever to fall for that.

At present, Cloud was finishing his sixth cup of coffee for the day, staring up at the Alexander building, his pulse already rising at the thought of seeing Tifa again. He found himself tugging at his tie, wondering why the hell she affected him this way, why he was already getting himself so worked up, just at the thought of seeing her again.

Zack killed the engine and pulled off his seatbelt. “Last one,” he was saying, reaching for his door handle. “Should be quick and easy, since you already got started on her this morning.”

For whatever reason, Cloud read Zack’s words in an entirely filthy manner, feeling himself grow even hotter under the collar.

Before Zack could open the door, he dropped his hand to his forearm. “Listen, you wait here. I got this. She’s… a little skittish. I’ve already built a rapport with her, and I don’t want her getting upset.”

“You don’t want her getting upset?” Zack repeated, turning to face him with an eyebrow raised, his turquoise eyes shining under the sunlight that streamed in through the windshield. 

Cloud hated the goading, teasing tone behind his words. “I just don’t want to compromise the investigation,” he quickly covered. “If I can play off of the relationship I’ve already established, we might be able to get some valuable information out of her.”

“Relationship,” Zack parroted once again with a chuckle. “Suit yourself, Strife. But remember what the Captain said,  _ Renegade _ .”

Cloud rolled his eyes, ignoring this as he opened the door and climbed out of the car, leaving his empty paper coffee cup in the car’s center console. As soon as he stepped out of the vehicle, he ran his hands over the front of his vest, staring at his reflection in the glass of the passenger side window as he pulled his fingers through his mess of spiky blonde hair, smoothing over his appearance. Feeling the sharp, chilled February wind nip through his dress shirt, he adjusted and tightened his shoulder holsters where his Glock sat against his ribcage, then reached for his jacket and tossed it over his shoulders.

Satisfied but trying not to think too much about why he cared so much how he looked suddenly, he took a brisk stride up to the Alexander, passing through its massive double glass doors for the second time that day.

Things had seemed to return largely to normal since that morning at the luxury apartment complex, Cloud realized as he passed through the lobby. Residents passed through, seemingly without a care in the world, on their daily, mundane business. There was no longer bright yellow police tape blocking access, nor were stone-faced, helmeted patrol officers guarding the perimeter.

And this time, he was immediately stopped by one of the building’s private security officers.

“Sir?” the man in a black and white uniform stopped him. “You’re not a resident here. Your business?”

_ No shit, Captain Obvious, _ Cloud wanted to shout.

Irritated, he reached into his jacket and pulled out his badge, flashing it at the guard. “Midgar Public Security Homicide,” he stated. “I’m here to see a tenant. Tifa Lockhart, apartment 60D.”

The guard made a face at the sight of the badge. ‘What is the nature of your visit?”

“I’m here regarding the murders that occurred in this building last night,” Cloud stated flatly. 

“Just a moment.”

He made for a phone behind the front desk, placing a call and turning away as he spoke in hushed tones. Cloud simply dropped his hands into his pockets, an eyebrow raised as he waited.

Minutes later, the guard finally turned back to him.

“You may take those elevators to the sixtieth floor, Detective.”

Cloud didn’t bother to respond or thank the guard, just turned away, heading for the elevators, already knowing where he was going.

He had to admit to himself that his nerves were uncharacteristically worked up as he rode the glass elevator to the 60 th floor, only they were ignited with a warmth that had nothing to do with trepidation but everything to do with anticipation. For whatever unfathomable reason, he found himself conjuring an image of Tifa in his head again, wondering what she might be wearing now, how she had spent her morning, if her lips were still pouty and smudged with that faint residue of red lipstick. He knew that his thoughts were dangerous - it was never a good idea to get mixed up with any woman involved with a case, let alone one who had become a suspect - but he found himself unable to drown his urges or the deeply ingrained attraction that was driving all of them.

When he reached her floor, he dragged his fingers through his hair one last time before he crossed the hall, pausing only for a moment before he gently rapt his fist against the door of apartment 60D.

Several beats passed, and Cloud was chewing the inside of his bottom lip when he finally heard soft footsteps padding toward the door. He heard the chain slide open and the click of the bolts, and then the door was pulled open, Tifa standing in the gap and peering up at him with her scarlet eyes bright and doe-eyed. She wasn’t wearing any makeup, but her lips were still stained red, and she was exuding a natural beauty that he knew was rare and hard to come by. Cloud felt his eyes widen, realizing that she was no longer wearing the revealing lingerie but was now in a loose-fitting, heather gray lounge dress that barely skimmed the center of her thighs, putting those long, firm legs once again on display and forcing Cloud to instantly wonder what it might feel like to have them wrapped around his neck.

“Detective,” she sang at once, sending a lightning bolt straight to his groin. “I wasn’t expecting to see you again so soon.”

Cloud kept his hands in his pockets, but they were beginning to sweat, and he was willing himself to keep it cool. He tossed his head nonchalantly in an effort to demonstrate his control.

“There’ve been some developments,” he responded, keeping his tone even. “May I come in, Ms. Lockhart?”

“Tifa,” she corrected him, stepping out of the way to let him in.

Cloud took a deep step forward, entering the plush apartment once again. Tifa closed the door behind him, and he let his eyes mark a casual scan around the room, seeing it in a different light now that the sunlight streamed in brightly through the floor-to-ceiling glass windows that led to her deck. Briefly, Cloud imagined Tifa standing on that balcony in her dark pink lace, shivering in the February cold as four men were brutally murdered before her very eyes only feet away.

“Can I get you something to drink, Detective?” she trilled up at him.

“Nah.”

“To what do I owe this lovely visit, then?” she asked.

Cloud’s eyes dropped to hers, finding her staring up at him, one corner of her lips pulled up into a coy smile. There was something unnerving about her beauty, now unmasked for him even further under full daylight. It was a rare cross between undeniably sexy and mind-blowingly gorgeous, tinged with a hint of cuteness that could bring a grown man to his knees. The way that her bottom lip poked out had him thinking about how wide he could make her mouth stretch open in a scream of pleasure, and he turned quickly away, pretending to take interest in the photos and figurines on her mantle.

“Ms. Lockhart, I’d like you to come downtown with me and answer a few questions.” He turned back to her, unable to help himself.

She tipped her head to one side, her smile spilling into perplexity, but something about it was still entirely too flirtatious. “Why, Detective? Am I in trouble?”

Cloud felt his neck begin to burn, and he balled his hands into fists in his pockets to relieve the tension. Her eyes were holding his, though, and despite the hot discomfort, he refused to pull away from her, only holding her stare with his and forcing steel behind hers, every intention to pin her to the ground with his stare alone.

“My partner and I just have a few things we want to ask you about the case,” he told her, his voice dropping entirely too low.

“Partner,” she repeated, shyly digging her toe into the carpet. “Is he as handsome as you are?”

“I don’t think so.”

“That’s good to know,” she laughed. “I don’t mind coming to the station with you, Detective. Would you give me a moment to change?”

She gestured to the blatant inappropriateness of her attire, dropping her hands to her waist, highlighting the obvious cinch of her waist and the swell of her hips that had been driving him mad all day. 

He nodded wordlessly, unable to stop the way his eyes dropped from hers and began to drive the winding roads of her figure.

She noticed this, because her smile grew fonder, and she took a few steps forward, hands still on her hips. “Let me ask you something, Detective,” she mused. “What do you think I’d look good in? Something mature? Exotic? Maybe… sporty?”

Cloud knew that there was steam coming out of his ears, but as his eyes lifted again to bore into hers, he knew that he could no longer deny the mutual attraction that was stifling the air between them, and all of his best judgment was tossed out of the window, his impulsive, darkest desires reigning supreme.

“…Something… refined,” he whispered softly to her after a beat passed, unable to correct the gravely undertone of his voice.

Her smile widened, and she dropped her hands from her hips.

“I’ll be right back.”

She turned away, and Cloud watched her ass the entire way as she sauntered into a hidden bedroom until she disappeared.

When she was gone, he let out a deep breath, shaking his head and turning to observe more of her living room. He noted some of the photos on the mantle, pictures of her when she was younger with what appeared to be her parents, standing in the center of a dusty village. There were more photos of her when she was a bit older, but only her father appeared in these pictures, the mother evaporated from them.

Cloud noted that even as a young girl, she had been stunningly beautiful.

He turned away, still feeling overbearingly hot, and crossed the room to the windows that led to the balcony. Finding the latch, he unhooked it and slid the door open, instantly greeted by a cold gust of wind that blew by, reminding him of the winter’s chill. The sudden burst of a mako reactor at the furthest pinnacle of the sector briefly drew his attention, and Cloud narrowed his eyes at it as he watched the verdant particles erupt into the air. He turned away to his right, facing Reeve Tuesti’s balcony, and he stepped to the edge of Tifa’s, looking over the glass railing.

The plunge below was treacherous and deadly, but the balconies were closely knit together and connected by what Cloud realized were service catwalks that allowed for easy maneuverability between each unit from the outside. His eyes narrowed as he stared at the portion of the balcony next door where the bodies had been discovered, all supine and facedown in puddles of syrupy blood, and he imagined Tifa in her lingerie and her red lipstick, crossing that catwalk with a .500 caliber revolver in hand, her silver earrings wavering in the wind.

“Detective?”

He turned abruptly at the sound of her voice, finding her standing in the glass threshold. She had changed into a high-neck, bodycon violet dress, her shoulders and arms covered with a form-fitting matching blazer that was cut just below her voluptuous breasts and left her waist fully on display. Her legs were bare, her feet tucked into violet, patent leather stilettos, and she had twisted her hair up into a messy updo, tendrils of long black hair and her fringe framing her face.

But Cloud couldn’t stop his mouth from gaping open at the sight of her face, her eyes now rimmed with liquid liner, her mouth painted red.

And the silver teardrops still dangled from her ears, the diamonds at her lobes sparkling under the mid-afternoon sunlight.

“Is everything alright?” she asked when he continued to stare at her, speechless.

He gathered his wits and stepped in her direction.

“Everything’s fine,” he told her, pushing the lust somewhere to the farthest recesses of his brain. “Let’s go.”

* * *

[ ν ] - εγλ - 2021 | February 14th

3:52PM

Sector0 Public Security Precinct - Homicide Division

“Might I have a cigarette, Detective Strife?”

Cloud had shed his jacket and blazer as soon as they arrived inside of the bureau, his body overheating after the ride across the Sector in Zack’s cruiser with Tifa Lockhart in the backseat. As soon as she had met Zack, his partner had turned his usual charm on, and somehow, in the space of minutes, there was a raging conspiracy between the both of them to tease Cloud into oblivion, each of Tifa’s words from behind him laced with subtle, flirtatious hints, Zack grinning like a manic hound at him as he navigated the sedan back to the precinct.

He was beginning to think that he would never survive this case if Tifa Lockhart remained a person of interest in its throes. His subtle attraction to her had grown into a full-blown inferno in less than twelve hours, and the distraction was both painful and frustrating. It didn’t help that Zack had now picked up on it, and seemed inclined to refuse to let it go.

“Now I see why you were so defensive over going up to bring her in yourself,” he’d whispered to him knowingly as they led Tifa inside of the precinct. “I could cut the tension with a buster sword between the two of you in my car. Shiva, you better be careful, Strife. I know how much you like your vices, but that one might cost you a little more than your badge.”

Cloud had pointedly ignored him, instead focusing on the way that the heads of every male and even some female law enforcement agents inside of headquarters turned as they navigated the narrow hallways toward the interrogation rooms, all eyes on Tifa as she passed through, feeling a hot rise of completely irrational possessive anger bubble up inside of his chest.

Lieutenant Wallace had been the only one who seemed uninterested, greeting Tifa Lockhart respectfully before he positioned himself behind the glass to observe, Cloud and Zack taking seats across from her in the interrogation room.

Cloud loosened his tie before he reached into his pocket for his cigarette holder, pulling one of the 100mm stogies from the silver case and holding it up to Tifa’s face. She smiled, leaning forward and wrapping her lips around its filter, her lipstick staining its tip as Cloud made a mental note to collect the butt when she was gone for forensics.

He pulled out his lighter and flicked it, setting the flame loose and igniting the cigarette. She pulled on it and then leaned back in her chair, crossing her legs one over the other before she blew the smoke into the air and smirked at him.

“Thank you,” she said, her eyes dropping over his shoulders and his torso, seemingly absorbing his entire upper body now that he sat there sans jacket, dressed in his white shirt and vest and shoulder holster.

Cloud said nothing, only dropping his lighter on the table, reaching up to loosen his tie at his throat, wondering when the fuck they had turned the heat up so high in this goddamn place.

He glanced over at Zack, who was standing with one foot on his chair instead of sitting in it, his arms bent over his knees. He tossed his head at him, letting his partner take the lead, Zack grinning as he turned to Tifa.

“Ms. Lockhart, my partner and I appreciate you taking the time to come down here today,” Zack told her. “I am sure after what you saw last night, this can’t be easy for you. Rest assured, we will do everything we can to make this as painless as possible.”

Tifa blew another plume into the air, and Cloud noticed that she was rolling her ankle the way she had early that morning in her kitchen, her stiletto shining under the harsh fluorescent lighting overhead. “Oh, I’m not too worried,” she rejoined when the smoke had cleared her lips. “Your partner took  _ good _ care of me last night. Or was that early this morning?”

Cloud felt his cheeks begin their tell-tale burn, and Zack was turning to him, an eyebrow raised before he turned back to Tifa.

“Have you notified your attorney that you have been brought in for questioning, Ms. Lockhart?” Zack asked.

“I don’t have an attorney,” Tifa responded. “And I don’t need one.”

Cloud and Zack exchanged a look, before Zack nodded and turned back to her.

“How well did you know the deceased, Ms. Lockhart?” he asked her, cutting right to the chase, dropping his foot from the chair and finally taking a seat in it.

Tifa let out a humorless laugh. “I knew Reeve well,” she answered. “I’ve worked with him on several contracts. I also worked with him when I was in Rufus’ office. They… did not get along well.”

Cloud made a mental note of this. “And what about the Turks?” Zack asked.

She shrugged. “I can’t say,” she responded. “I don’t get involved in that side of the business.”

“So the Turks never enforced any contracts you were involved in?” Cloud found himself jumping in. “Ms. Lockhart, isn’t that part of their job description?”

She turned to him, smiling placidly now. “Why, I believe it is,” she answered. “But by then, it’s out of my hands. I only write and negotiate the contracts, I don’t enforce them beyond litigation. The General Affairs Division is outside of my purview.”

Cloud sat back in his seat, his eyes still locked with hers, his fist clenching at his side for reasons he couldn’t understand.

“Ms. Lockhart,” Zack picked up again, “Would you say that your relationship with any of these men ever ventured outside of the professional?”

Tifa kept her eyes trained on Cloud for just a moment too long before she turned away and glanced over at Zack, tipping her head to the side as if in confusion.

“Whatever do you mean, Detective?”

“Romantic,” Cloud blurted suddenly. “Did you ever have a romantic or sexual relationship with any of those men?”

Tifa scoffed in response, and it quickly deteriorated into another sultry laugh. She took a final puff on her cigarette, blowing the smoke directly in Cloud’s direction before she smashed it out in the crystal ashtray she held in one hand.

“Absolutely not,” she replied, her ruby eyes holding his sapphires, and she leaned forward, handing him the ashtray, her breasts pressing tight against the fabric of her dress. “None of those guys are my type.”

“Is that right?” Cloud couldn’t stop himself from walking right into her trap. He set the ashtray on the floor beside his wingtips, his eyes never leaving hers. He leaned forward, dropping his arms across his knees, widening his stance as his eyes hooked deeper reels into hers. “And what’s your type, Ms. Lockhart?”

“Hmm,” she was smiling again, her lips pursed together in a pouty smirk as she considered it. “Blonde. Blue-eyed.  _ Pretty _ .”

Cloud stared at her, licking his bottom lip, his chest ablaze and his pants overstarched and too stiff.

Zack was clearing his throat. “Ms. Lockhart,” he interjected. “Anything you can tell us about your relationship with these men will be immensely helpful to our investigation. We’re just trying to help you, you know. Process of elimination, and all that. We just want to determine that you didn’t kill these four men.”

Tifa pouted at this, but her gaze was fixated on Cloud and not Zack. “Oh, Detective. Do I look like I’m capable of killing four men?”

_ You’re killing me _ , Cloud thought, his heart now pounding as desire oozed from his veins like a bad infection.

“Why did you lie about the time you left Tuesti’s apartment, then, Ms. Lockhart?” Cloud finally demanded, imagining himself wrapping his hand around her throat as he interrogated her.

Her head was tipped in bewilderment again. “What do you mean, Detective?”

She had the unique ability to make his blood boil with her coyness, tossing him adrift in a sea that was blended with anger and raging lust. He bit the inside of his lip, pushing himself to his feet and taking a step closer to her until he was standing right over her. She tipped her head back to look up into his eyes, still holding her hands in her lap.

“The security cameras have you leaving Tuesti’s apartment after three,” he told her, his voice rough and rumbly, almost low enough that Zack couldn’t hear. “You told me you’d left an hour prior.”

Tifa closed her eyes and sighed dramatically, almost remorsefully, before she turned back to him with those grenache pools wide open again.

“Oh, I’m so sorry, Detective,” she apologized, her voice dripping with honey and setting his soul alight with need. “I had a few drinks last night, and I must have completely mixed up the time. Please, I apologize. I didn’t intend to mislead you.”

He stared at her for a moment, opening his mouth to speak. But she sat up taller beneath him, pushing her breasts up even higher and angling her head to one side so that he could catch just a hint of her pale throat beneath the high-necked collar of her dress, her silver earring hanging precariously by that ivory skin.

“I would  _ never _ mislead you, Detective,” she whispered, loud enough for only him to hear, sending all of the heat in his body into a fiery cauldron in the center of his gut.

In the end, they did not get much further with their interrogation of Tifa Lockhart. Cloud had tried with a few more pointed questions about the events of the evening and her relationship with the victims, had asked her a bit about her history with the Shinra corporation, but they gleaned nothing that was particularly new outside of what he had learned the night before. Eventually, they wrapped it up, escorting Tifa outside of the interrogation room into the precinct’s busy hallways.

“Get that cigarette butt and send it to Forensics,” Cloud instructed Biggs when he and Barret stepped outside of the back room and joined them in the hallway.

Barret’s good hand was instantly on his shoulder when they left the room.

“What in shittin’ Shiva’s name was that, Strife?” he demanded, his voice rough with aggravation. 

But Cloud’s eyes were glued to Tifa’s round, pillowy bottom as she sauntered down the hallway, Zack a step ahead of her. “What?” he responded, his voice equally as thick with irritation.

“Flirtin’ with the goddamned suspect,” Barret growled. “You better cut the shit, Strife. I’ve got my eyes on you, and if you keep acting like a chocobo-brained fool, I’ll have the Captain pull you from this case so fast you’ll be spinning all the way to Cosmo Canyon.”

“Fuck off, Wallace,” Cloud swore, shouldering past him, making his way down the hall behind Tifa.

He could hear Barret cussing behind him, but he ignored it completely, eventually catching up with Tifa and Zack, pulling his arms through his blazer’s sleeves as he fell in step beside them.

“Gentlemen,” she crooned gently to them. “Would one of you please give me a ride home?”

“I’ve got you,” Cloud immediately volunteered, Zack turning to him again with an eyebrow raised, a smirk tugging at his lips before he slowed down, dropping away from them and letting Cloud and Tifa walk off together, a simper on his face.

“Thanks for coming down, Ms. Lockhart,” he called after them, and Cloud could detect the amusement laden in his voice.

He ignored it though, holding the door open to the street outside open for Tifa, and she smiled at him, warm and appreciative, as she passed through the threshold. He followed behind her, and when they reached the bottom of the steps, the winter winds again nipping him beneath his sleeves, he wrapped his arm around her shoulders and drew her into him, the same sweet fragrances she’d carried early that morning in her apartment drifting up and wrapping around him again.

“It’s getting cold,” he told her softly. “Come on, my car is this way.”

He led her to his vehicle, feeling the warmth of her body through her blazer despite the temperatures that were dropping around them. The sky was just beginning to fade into twilight; early evening descending upon the city with the whispers of sunlight beginning to melt into the horizon.

He pulled open the passenger side door for her, holding a smirk on his lips when she looked up at him and smiled. He watched her legs as she slid into the vehicle, her skirt riding up wickedly high on her thighs.

He closed the door when she was settled inside, breathing in the icy air and hoping it would freeze out the feverish yearning that was beginning to make him foggy and incoherent.

The drive across the sector back to the Alexander apartment complex was short, and they were mostly silent as he drove, Cloud’s thoughts distracted and mired in the woman who sat beside him, his peripheral aware every time she glanced over at him, her lips pursed together in a blood-red pout that reminded him over and over again of how utterly kissable they were and how much control he had been summoning that entire day not to grab onto her cheeks and press his lips to hers.

“You know,” she cooed at his side when he’d pulled up to a traffic light a few blocks from her building. “Even when I was a girl, I always was a big fan of those dark, gritty detective stories. Is that why you entered law enforcement, Cloud?”

It was the first time she’d used his first name, and it forced him to glance over at her. In the waning sunlight that streamed in through the windows, her face was pale but luminescent, underlined by an ethereal lilac glow. Her eyes twinkled like molten garnets, the color only bringing out the crimson of her mouth, which was now slightly parted and wet at the center. It was unbearably distracting.

Cloud wasn’t exactly sure how to answer her question. As far as he could recall, he’d joined the force because he’d thought at the time it was the only job that might give him a thrill while also offering him a semblance of honor, and was challenging enough to keep him busy and out of trouble. Over the years, though, it had lost its luster.

“Something like that,” he deflected, his eyes meeting hers. “So,  _ Tifa _ . What detective stories were your favorites?”

“Hm,” she hummed at his side, just as the light changed and he pulled off again. “I think I might have to go with  _ The Last Farewell.  _ Ever seen it?”

“Can’t say that I have,” he answered, making a left turn. “What’s it about?”

“A private eye,” she responded, her voice taking on that sing-song, lilting husk again. “Hired by a beautiful woman to help her find her missing husband. He soon finds out that they are both in deep with the mob, and it almost gets him killed - until he learns that  _ she _ was the one to kill her husband for the insurance money to pay off her own gambling debts.”

Cloud thought this sounded remarkably cliche. “Oh yeah? So what happens?”

“The detective falls in love with her, of course,” Tifa breathed at his side. “And he helps her cover up her crime, which costs him everything in the end.”

Her narration had dropped below a whisper again, leaving his heart pounding, and he was about to ask her just what she meant by that when he realized they had pulled up in front of the Alexander.

He let the subject drop, throwing the car into park and letting the engine idle. He tossed a final glance at Tifa, catching her smiling at him again, arching her back slightly in her seat in a way that was too provocative for his blood pressure, and he climbed his way out of the car, walking around the front of it to open her door.

He offered her his arm, and she latched onto it, stepping out onto the concrete beside him, Cloud slamming the door shut.

She smoothed out her dress, then stepped closer to him, completely closing the gap between them. She moved in so close that her breasts were nearly pressing against his chest, and her scent was flooding his senses, her body heat blending into his and making him dizzy.

If she did not back the fuck away, he was going to find himself in a world of trouble.

But it only got worse, Tifa raising her hands and dropping them to his clavicle, her fingers curling around his tie and tugging on it a bit before she slid both palms slowly down his chest. Her fingers splayed as they lowered, grazing over the leather straps of his holsters beneath his jacket, dancing dangerously close to his Glock.

Cloud could feel the moon and sun eclipse inside of his chest, his entire body on fire, his fists clenching at his sides in an effort to keep from grabbing her and completely ravishing her right in the middle of the sidewalk.

“You know, Detective,” she began, her voice low, her breath thick and hot against his chin as she looked up at him, and Cloud could see every crease that was pressed into her cherry-red lips. “Since I’m no longer a suspect, maybe we could see each other outside of this unfortunate case.”

“Who said you were no longer a suspect?” he breathed, bending and moving his face closer to hers, their noses lightly touching, their lips less than an inch apart.

She huffed a laugh, her breath skirting over his teeth and greeting his tongue. He could feel the bright pain singing him at the front of his pants, and finally, he brought his hands up to her forearms, gripping them tightly as he held her close to him, milliseconds from crushing his lips to hers.

She laughed again, shaking her head and abruptly breaking their contact. She tried to back away from him, but Cloud was stuck, the attraction and penetrating desire freezing him into place while his body crashed and burned. He could only stare down at her face, feeling the softness of her form against his.

“Detective… you’re hurting me.”

He released her at once, pulling his hands away and then awkwardly dropping them to his sides. He expected her to offer him a look of disagreement or chastisement, but to his surprise, she was smiling at him even more kittenishly than she had been before, dropping her hands from his torso.

She backed away finally, still holding his eyes with hers, drowning him in pools that were the same color as the blood that had been spilled all over Reeve Tuesti’s deck.

“I’ll see you around, Detective Strife,” she finally purred, turning away with a tiny wave. “Goodnight.” 

“Goodnight, Tifa,” he answered immediately as she sashayed her way to the Alexander’s front doors.

Cloud leaned back against his vehicle, pulling a cigarette out of its case in his jacket pocket, lighting it and taking a long drag, watching Tifa’s hips sway the entire time until she disappeared inside of the building.

Little did he know he would be seeing her again, unexpectedly, in just a few hours’ time.

  
  
  
  
  



	2. Part Two - Game of Seduction

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heyyyyyyy.
> 
> Well, Part 2 is here. 
> 
> Don't ask me what's wrong with me, and please don't judge me after you read this. lmaoo 
> 
> Thanks to Spaceodementia for beta reading and for making me laugh joyously.
> 
> Happy reading!

Valentine’s Day Massacre

—————— 

** Part Two - Game of Seduction **

[  ν ] -  εγλ \- 2021 | February 14th

7:42 PM 

Sector0 Public Security Precinct - Homicide Division 

“We’re shit out of luck with these leads, Strife.”

Cloud was back at his desk in the detective’s bureau at headquarters, his feet kicked up on the wood and his hands crossed behind his head. He’d drifted into a light snooze, waiting on some lab results and other analysis for the Valentine’s Day Massacre case, opening his eyes at the sound of Zack’s voice.

He glanced up at his partner, yawning a little, dragging his feet off of the desk and sitting up straight.

His workspace was still covered with endless papers and photos, files and reports and the transcripts of interviews from the day. He had fallen asleep after running searches on the suspects on his desktop computer, most intrigued by what he had learned about Tifa Lockhart.

She was twenty-eight years old, originally from the quiet mountain town of Nibelheim, faraway on the other side of the world, a town that had been met by a tragic reactor accident that Shinra had tried to cover up more than a decade ago. Cloud’s own mother had been from Nibelheim, though she had moved him to the city before he’d been born. Still, he had always held an affinity for the sleepy village he’d never gotten to know, and he remembered the scandal well.

According to the database, Tifa had a clean criminal record. She had attended university and law school in Midgar, working at a nightclub in Sector7 to put herself through college, and had graduated magna cum laude. She’d started working for Shinra Inc. sometime after, but other than that, there was not much information in the system about her, and none of it was helpful to the case, or to his raging desires.

Pushing her from his mind, he looked up at Zack. “Anything from Forensics?”

“The lab’s a little backed up,” Zack answered. Looking up at him, Cloud realized how much more progressively disheveled Zack had grown over the course of the last thirteen hours, his shirt wrinkled, his tie disappeared, his black hair wilder and messier than usual. “Still waiting on some analysis from the crime scene, and on Hancock and Lockhart’s lipsticks.”

Cloud nodded, feeling a brightness enter his cheeks at the mention of Tifa.

“What’s with you and her, anyway?” Zack asked suddenly, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Who?” Cloud asked stupidly.

Zack rolled his eyes. “You and the Lockhart broad. I saw the way she was flirting with you during the ride over and in the interrogation, and you were just eating all of it up. And then you were way too eager to take her back to her place.”

Cloud shrugged as dismissively as he could, twisting his lips up in a look of pure disinterest.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he lied.

Zack scoffed, the sound breaking away with a rough edge. “You’re not fooling anyone, Strife,” he warned. “You two are acting like you’ve known each other for years. I’m sensing some issues here. You better watch yourself.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Cloud tossed, reaching for a cigarette and offering the case to Zack, who waved it away. Cloud shrugged and lit his own stick, sitting back and blowing a thick stream of white smoke into the air.

“Strife, Fair,” Lieutenant Barret Wallace interrupted them then, appearing behind Zack with his arms crossed across the wide barrel of his chest. He too had shed his sport coat at some point during the day and had loosened his collar, the creases in his forehead the evidence of the stress and aggravation of the last stretch of hours. “I’ve had enough of you two sittin’ around this precinct waiting for the leads to fall into your laps. Time for you to get out there and do some old school, gumshoe sleuthing.”

Cloud fought hard to avoid rolling his eyes right in Barret’s face, always annoyed with the older man’s propensity to deploy euphemisms and antiquated idioms. Instead, he simply stared at him, waiting for the other shoe to drop, bringing his cigarette to his lips.

“What do you have in mind, boss?” Zack brown-nosed.

“Rufus Shinra is throwing some sort of fancy party at an upscale club in Sector7,” he informed them, scratching the top of his head. “Called Seventh Heaven. The same folks who were at Reeve’s apartment last night will most likely be there, including our current POIs. Go there and do what detectives do best - investigate, find a lead, and solve this goddamn case.”

Cloud groaned, completely displeased with this idea.

Barret’s hazel brown eyes were instantly trained on his face. “I don’t want to hear shit from you, Strife,” he woofed. “You better get your crazy ass down there and find something out. That goes for you too, Fair. Y’all heard the Captain. If Heidegger gets his ass, it’s coming down on me first and you two idiots next, and we all know shit rolls downhill.”

Cloud had had just about enough. He pushed to his feet, smashing his cigarette out in the ashtray on his desk before he reached for his jacket and pulled it on.

“Fine. Let’s go, Fair.”

He strode past Barret wordlessly, straightening his tie as he went.

Zack clapped Barret on the shoulder before he spun around behind him, offering him a wink.

“We got this, Big Guy,” he reassured, only to earn a glare from the Lieutenant in response.

—————— 

[  ν ] -  εγλ \- 2021 | February 14th

9:01 PM 

Seventh Heaven Nightclub - Sector7, Midgar 

It was sometime later that evening when Zack pulled his cruiser up across the street from Seventh Heaven, an exclusive nightclub located Topside in Sector7. From where he sat in the passenger seat, Cloud could narrow his eyes, glowing cobalt and jade in the darkness, and see the slick, dark gleaming windows and subtle white neon lighting that bordered the club’s entrance, a bouncer guarding its door under a dark and heavy awning.

At some point that night, it had begun to rain, coming down in heavy pelts, hammering a drumbeat against the roof and the windshield of Zack’s vehicle.

“Fancy joint, huh?” Zack commented, throwing the car into park. “What kind of a cold-blooded sonofabitch throws a party right after a bunch of his top employees are murdered? Wonder if Rufus will have a problem with a couple of hawkshaws crashing it?”

“He won’t have much of a choice,” Cloud muttered, shouldering open the door. “Come on, let’s go.”

The two detectives crossed the street side by side in the rain in a light jog, holding their coats closed against the rough weather. They approached the front entrance, instantly stopped by the club’s bouncer.

“Midgar Public Security,” Cloud said before the man could vocalize a protest over their sudden appearance. “We’re here on behalf of Shinra Public Security Chief Joseph Heidegger.”

He held up his badge, and the bouncer offered him a skeptical look before he stepped out of the way and granted them entry.

“Don’t cause any trouble,” he cautioned them.

Cloud paid him no mind, stepping inside of the dark club with Zack a pace behind him, already hearing the beat of the music inside and feeling it pulse throughout the walls of the club as they navigated a narrow, dark hallway toward the main dance floor. The corridor emptied out into a doorway that led to the main dance floor, the large room lined by a bar on one side and booths and tables around the perimeter, the center of the floor teeming with people dancing close to one another.

The music was booming so loudly from the speakers overhead that Cloud found himself wincing, looking around with a slight scowl painted across his lips. His eyes caught the walls of mirrors that surrounded the club, fluorescent, colorful lighting in purples and greens and blues cascading over the swarm of hot and sweaty bodies that moved against one another in the center of it, the faint but musky scent of booze and sweat and cigarette smoke permeating the air.

Cloud and Zack stopped in a dark corner that afforded them a view of nearly the entire club, including the crystalline staircase that led to the VIP section on the floor above that overlooked the dance floor. Cloud gripped the back of his neck with his palm, squeezing away some of the tension he felt. This was definitely not the kind of environment he was predisposed to being in, and already, his head was beginning to pound.

“Think we should split up?” Zack leaned in and cawed into his ear, trying to keep his voice down but also having to somewhat shout over the thump of the music. “Though I’m not even really sure what we’re looking for here.”

“Anyone who was on the list at Tuesti’s party last night,” Cloud responded, his eyes falling toward the bar, already thinking about using this exercise in futility as an excuse to throw back a few whiskeys. “Listen in for suspicious conversations. Tail anybody who you think might know something.”

Zack nodded, eyeing a few tables in the back that were crowded with men and women in expensive, tailored clothes. “I’ll hang out back there for a while, see if I pick up anything interesting. You want to stake out the bar?”

“Yeah,” Cloud agreed readily, but his eyes were drifting up to the balcony above. “Might be worth it if we can get into the VIP space at some point.”

“I’ll work my charms,” Zack promised with a wink, nodding before heading off in the opposite direction, blending into the darkness and the crowd.

Cloud kept his eyes narrowed as the smoke burned them, and pulling on his jacket around him, he made his way across the dance floor, sliding between the clubgoers who writhed in its center. The press of bodies so close together in such a tightly confined space pulled at his nerves, and as soon as he took a seat at the bar, he was drumming his fingers against the counter in irritation as he waited to be served.

He ordered a whiskey on the rocks and then pulled out a cigarette, lighting it as he let his eyes scan the room. He tried to focus, to see if he recognized anyone, the haze of the cigarette smoke blurring his vision.

He recognized a trio of SOLDIERS lingering in one corner of the club by a cluster of lounge chairs and couches - General Sephiroth, his, long, silver hair shining with ethereal glows of violet under the skylights, his commander Angeal Hewely, dark-haired and silent with his head tipped back toward the ceiling, and the red-haired commander Genesis, who was leaned over a woman in a short dress, a wild look on his face, his lips moving rapidly as he spoke in the darkness, the woman smoking a cigarette with a bored expression on her face.

Cloud resisted the urge to grimace at this, his eyes narrowing. Genesis Rhapsodos, an infamous Shinra First Class SOLDIER, had been the cause of a great deal of headaches for Cloud and the Public Security department in the past year. Caught in the middle of the murder of an actress at a production of LOVELESS, Cloud and Zack had been inches away from proving Genesis’ guilt in the killing, but had not anticipated his manipulative nature and his deep entanglements within the police force that left a lot of evidence and procedures questionable. Cloud had lost his temper with him more than once during questioning, and a mishap with the chain of custody of critical evidence in the case had left Genesis walking off scot-free on a technicality.

It had been almost enough for Cloud to quit the force right that very day, especially since his superiors had largely seen fit to place the blame for the ordeal on him. If it hadn’t been for Zack, he would have walked away with his pension taking a huge hit.

He tore his eyes from that irritating sight, soon finding Scarlet Price seated at another booth, surrounded by men who were all at least half her age. There was a large group of them vying for her attention, a few of them young Shinra managers in suits, their sport coats tossed away and their ties loosened. Others were lower-ranking members of the Shinra military, boys whose uniforms were already disheveled, buttons and zippers coming undone in the darkness. All of them were falling over themselves to attract Scarlet’s praise and affection, and Cloud felt himself grow disgusted as he watched, wondering if any of them might wind up shot to death with lipstick smudged across their collars before the end of the night.

He turned away from this display, letting his eyes fall over the rest of the crowd, spotting a few other Shinra executives and making a note of them all, but not really interested in them at the moment. The bartender brought him his drink, and Cloud listened in to the conversations that unfolded around him, trying to pick up anything that was related to the unfortunate events of the night prior at Reeve’s apartment. The inebriated chatter was completely irrelevant to his investigation, leaving him to feel that this was nothing but a huge waste of his time.

Cloud was considering finding Zack and telling him they should just book it and try to pick up a lead elsewhere when his eyes drifted up to the private VIP balcony above the dancefloor. It was guarded by a wall of glass, but Cloud could easily see inside, and he narrowed his eyes with interest when he caught a flash of white.

Rufus Shinra was at his feet, leaning against the back of a plush leather couch, a drink in his hand and a smirk on his face. But none of that interested Cloud as much as the sight of the woman who he towered over, dark-haired and petite with an endless winding road of curves that he recognized even from this distance.

Cloud felt his hand vice around his drink as he stared. Tifa Lockhart was standing inches away from President Rufus Shinra, wearing a tight, brilliant white ruched dress, her hands on her hips. Her hair was brushed slick to one side, draping over her shoulder and clasped in a glittering hair tie. From where he sat, Cloud could even see that dark, scarlet red painted across her lips again.

He felt an undeniable blend of sensations rise up inside of him, the hot, raging desire he felt whenever he laid eyes on her crossed with a penetrating, angry possession that intensified the more that Rufus leaned closer to her and offered her that smug simper he was notorious for. It was boiling Cloud’s blood up inside, and he tried to read the look on her face from where he sat, watching as her lips moved, but he couldn’t get a good take on it. When she stepped closer to Rufus, he found the heat flaming up under his necktie towards his throat, and he turned away from the scene and faced the bar again, bringing his whiskey to his lips and taking a long sip.

Cloud sat there for a long while, brooding over his thoughts, unable to tear Tifa or the case from them, his brain cross-stitching both together. He blew smoke into the air, looking down with annoyance when he realized that he’d drained his glass, and he pushed it to the side, wanting to blow this joint and drown himself in a bottle in peace and quiet inside of the confines of his own apartment.

The case was stifling him, and he hated how they were stuck, no leads to chase, and a pair of suspects that it was going to take a lot more evidence to nail.

And he hated how half of his time was spent consumed with how he wanted to _nail_ one of those suspects, how seeing her just moments ago got such a rise out of him, her proximity to the Shinra president causing a torrent of jealous rage to wash ashore in the pit of his gut in a way that was completely unsettling, that he didn’t understand at all. It had him calling the bartender over again, itching for another drink to drown the stupidity that was wrapping itself around his brain, once again wondering if he and Zack shouldn’t just call it a night before he found himself getting into trouble.

“Detective?”

He was on the verge of pushing up to locate his partner when he heard her voice and felt her warm palm drop to his shoulder and wrap around it, vicing it in her gentle grip before she slid it forward, just over his collarbone, her fingers sliding under the collar of his dress shirt and toying with the hem of his vest. His breath caught in the back of his throat at the sound of her low lilt, the heat of her hand pressing through the fabric into his skin, forcing his entire body to seize up.

He swallowed, putting his cigarette out in the ashtray in front of him as he tried to gather his composure and hold on to his senses. He turned on the barstool, finding Tifa Lockhart standing slightly behind him, her head tipped to one side, her hand still on him, and as their eyes met, she smiled and squeezed him.

“…Ms. Lockhart,” he breathed as cooly as he could.

Up close, her features were sharp under the myriad of neon lighting overhead. He could see the deep lines of black ink painted around her eyelids, making her cherry-red irises pop with color that sparkled beneath the shining lights. Her lips were in a full pout as she smiled, a deep blood red, reminding him of the nasty stains he had stepped around on Reeve Tuesti’s balcony the night before. Tendrils of her hair were spilling into her face and against the line of her throat, and Cloud couldn’t stop his gaze from lowering, sweeping over the form-fitting white satin of her dress, strapless with a plunging neckline and a cinched detail that made the sharpness of her waist steal his breath from his lungs.

She seemed to detect his internal distress and was primed to take advantage of it, taking a step forward and flooding him with her scent again, mouthwateringly sweet. He swallowed, not moving an inch even as she drew unnaturally close into his personal space, almost as close as she had been a few hours ago when he’d dropped her off in front of her building.

“I told you, _Tifa_ ,” she corrected him again, her hand sliding down and across his chest as he swiveled to face her fully. “Detective Strife, I hadn’t expected to see you again so soon. Looks like the fates just keep on bringing us back together.”

He scoffed lightly at this, dragging one corner of his mouth up into a smirk, challenging her back by giving her another long look up and down the crests of her figure.

“Maybe,” he responded. “What are you doing at a place like this, _Tifa_?”

She slid her hand lower until it swiped across the top of his abdomen before she pulled it away. “This is a Shinra party, why wouldn’t I be here?” she trilled, and then her hand dropped lightly to his knee, forcing Cloud to realize that somehow, both of his had parted and that she was standing between them. “It begs the question, what are _you_ doing here, Detective?”

She stepped closer to him, and Cloud felt his entire body glow with warmth.

“I’m still on the clock,” was all he said.

She laughed in a randy way, then shifted to slide onto the barstool next to him, holding his knee and turning him slightly so that he remained facing her with his stance wide as she took a seat. His eyes never left her face, though they did wander, hovering over her lips and her high cheekbones, admiring her long, sinuous neck, catching the glitter of her silver earrings hanging from her lobes.

“Would you buy me a drink, Detective?” she asked coyly, crossing her legs on her stool so that her ankle was centered right between his legs.

He couldn’t stop himself from looking down, trailing the canvas of her thighs as her skirt rode up way too high, down the tight sculptures of her calves down to her narrow ankles, finally to the silver stiletto pumps that she wore. He licked his lips, staring for far too long before he looked back up into her eyes.

“What would you like?” he asked her in a low whisper, the dumbest thing he could have done or said at that moment. 

“Gin and tonic,” she purred back at him.

In a haze, Cloud ordered himself another drink and one for Tifa, his heart pounding the entire time. As they waited, he lit a cigarette for her, placing it between her lips, watching them curl into a pout around the filter. He leaned back and exhaled a heavy breath, putting another stick in his mouth and taking a drag just as their drinks were placed in front of them.

He took a quick sip of his, watching Tifa lift hers to her mouth, her lipstick staining the tiny straw. He tried over and over to pull his stare away from hers, but he found himself completely hooked in, and any time he made any headway in actually looking away, his eyes only fell lower on her body, finding more territory to map.

She seemed to bask in his admiration, because she leaned back on her stool, one elbow against the bartop. A stretch of silence was passing between them, but Tifa was soon leaning in close again, and she tapped her stiletto against the inside of his leg, the toe of her shoe curling around the inside of his calf.

“So, Detective,” she began gently, setting her drink down again, and at the soft clink, he glanced over at the shimmer of her polished, bright red nails. “You never did _actually_ tell me what compelled you to join the police force. What was it, hmm?”

She was entirely too close, but all Cloud wanted to do was lean in, to maybe grab her and pull her even closer. But he restrained himself, taking another sip of his whiskey and tapping a bit of ash off of his cigarette before he looked up at her again.

“Call it a little bit of idealism,” he finally responded, feeling his leg burn where she was now running the top of her foot up and down the back of his calf. “Thought I could help people, save the world, bring justice to those who deserved it. That kind of thing.” 

He brought his glass up to his lips again, letting his eyes sweep over her from head to toe as she smiled delicately, her eyes sparkling under the cascade of flashing lights, the music a light roar around them, now belting out a smoky jazz song that was all pianos and the crash of cymbals. She was glowing under the lights, her skin bright and pale, and she sipped daintily before she nodded, her eyes lighting up as if every word he said was the most important thing ever spoken.

“And what about you, Ms. Lockhart,” he pressed on when she remained quiet, her lips now kissing her cigarette again. “Why did you decide to become a lawyer and work for Shinra, hmm?”

Tifa just smiled at him, setting her glass down again, and Cloud realized that the liquid was almost drained from around the ice.

“Something similar,” she responded, and she finished her cigarette, plugging it out in the ashtray. “Wanted to do the right thing. Make a difference. Didn’t turn out that way, I’m afraid.”

“Is that so?” he said in reply.

“Mhm,” she hummed. “Y’know, I used to bartend at this very club to pay my way through University. I didn’t have an easy childhood, Detective, and I had to work hard for everything - I had to struggle. I thought my career might help me make life better for others, so they wouldn’t have to live through so many hardships the way I did.”

Cloud thought back to what he’d read about her in the dossier back at headquarters, the gears in his head turning.

“Something changed along the way,” she admitted softly.

Cloud watched her as she turned away from him slightly, focusing on still smashing out her cigarette, his eyebrow slightly raised. He felt himself grow not only hotter by her closeness and light touch on his body, but intrigued by her words, trying to figure out what was really behind Tifa Lockhart.

He also tried to remind himself that he needed to get back to headquarters and get after the forensic results of her lipstick.

He started to say something in response, but then she was standing, pushing her glass away and reaching for his hand. He found his nerves all beginning to light up, feeling the soft lightness of her skin against his as she folded her palm around his.

“Nevermind all of that,” Tifa said quickly. “Let’s dance, Detective.”

“I don’t dance,” he protested instantly, but it fell on deaf ears, and he found himself being pulled off of his seat and dragged in the direction of the dance floor.

Another heady jazz song was playing, though this time its piano was underscored by the sensual cry of a saxophone. Cloud could barely digest its sound, though, no more than he could decipher the bodies that surrounded him, completely lost in Tifa when she wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed her body close to his, flooding him with her warmth and her curvy softness, her body beginning to slowly rock against his, forcing him to move in rhythm with hers.

Cloud didn’t know what the fuck he was doing. He avoided activities like this at all costs, but somehow, he found his hands dropping to Tifa’s waist, holding her right above the curve of her hip and feeling her soft warmth through the slippery, shining white fabric of her dress, his blue eyes now locked tight with her deep crimson.

The longer they stared at each other, the more Tifa’s lips curved again in that hint of a smile that held barely concealed intentions, and Cloud found his skull climbing higher and higher into mist when her sway turned into a grind. He tried to breathe, feeling her breasts rub against his chest, damning their layers of clothing the instant he felt the hardness of her nipples through his vest and shirt.

The keys of the music shifted slightly, and abruptly, Tifa turned in his grip, turning her back to him. She pressed against him, rolling her hips, her round, full bottom now right against his groin, sending a hot, sharp spike of pain throughout his body as he felt himself grow further into steel.

Her awareness of this had her chuckling lightly as she danced, her body now moving in a slow grind, killing him softly as she tossed her head back, the smoothness of her dark hair right beneath his chin. Set completely alight, Cloud lowered his hands from her waist to fully grasp her hips, his fingertips digging hard divots into her dress, pressing against the skin below.

He had fallen into rhythm with her movements, but largely let her control their rock back and forth until the song ended on a lilting crescendo. Not knowing what to do next, Cloud simply stood there, holding her, until she finally stepped away from him, and he dropped his hands as she turned back to face him.

She was yawning, exposing her pink tongue to him. He stared right into her mouth, searching the perfect line of her white teeth, imagining what it might feel like to shove his tongue right past them.

She leaned forward, and Cloud almost collapsed when he realized she was reaching for him again. Her perfectly manicured hands were wrapping around the knot of his necktie at the base of his throat, circling the soft, dark silk, and he glanced down to see that it had at some point that night shifted and become rumpled and disheveled where it was tucked into his vest.

“Thanks for the drink, Detective,” she told him softly, her fingers lowering over his chest as she deftly smoothed his tie and tucked it back into place. She kept her hands on him even after she had fixed it. “And the dance. But I’m getting tired. Would you give me a ride home?”

Cloud could think of nothing in the world he wanted to do more, but he’d come here with Zack. He cursed inwardly, tearing his eyes away from her hands to look back up into her dark red eyes, finding her pupils wide.

“I would,” he offered lightly, “But I came here with my partner. I’ll call you a cab.”

“Okay,” she conceded, her voice still carrying its melody, sending his bones through an inferno.

He nodded, finally feeling a little bit in control of himself, and he fished his wallet out of his pocket, returning to the bar and leaving some gil on the counter to pay for both their drinks. He used his PHS to order a rideshare, adjusting his jacket before he returned to Tifa and offered her his arm.

She accepted it, stepping away with a light click of her heels, her eyes still lit up like bloodied diamonds. Cloud lost all sense of purpose, of time and space, belligerently neglectful of the environment around him as he pulled her in close and walked her narrowly through the throng and towards the door, his eyes focused on the shine of her hair and the fullness of her hips as she pulled ahead in front of him.

When they stepped outside, they stood side by side under Seventh Heaven’s awning, Tifa moving in close to him. The rain had slowed, but the night was still bitingly cold, and he couldn’t believe that Tifa was standing out here in her sleeveless, skimpy dress and nothing else. Without hesitation, he pulled his arm away from hers and shrugged out of his jacket, draping it over her shoulders while he studied the profile of her face as she stared ahead at the street.

“Thanks,” she whispered up at him.

He nodded cooly, lighting a fresh cigarette while they waited, silence passing between them but their body heat clinging to one another’s. Tifa moved in closer to him, nudging him gently with her shoulder, her body releasing a little shiver, and impulsively, Cloud wrapped his arm around her waist as if she belonged to him.

A few minutes passed that way, Cloud fighting all of the urges that were currently pushing him to do something even stupider than the moves he’d already made that night. When the cab he’d ordered her pulled up to the curb, its tires rolling slick across the rainy asphalt, he almost let out a sigh of relief.

“That’s you,” he breathed, turning to her and dropping his hand from her waist. He reached for his jacket. “Goodnight, Ms. Lockhart. Get home safe.”

But Tifa was stepping around to stand in front of him, dodging his reach for her shoulders, once again raising her beautiful hands to his throat. She grabbed his tie again, but this time she pulled on it, dragging it out from beneath his vest and giving it a little tug, reeling him in closer to her until their faces were inches apart and Cloud was forced to look down into her eyes.

“Y’know,” she began, her voice a low, soft husk, “After all that horribleness last night, I’m a little afraid to be alone tonight. Will you come back to my place with me, Detective?”

Cloud’s heart was pounding in his chest, beating so fast and hard he was afraid it might burst free, but despite this, he felt like time was slowing around him. He tried to process her closeness and her words, and the better part of his brain was instantly shouting at him.

_Don’t do it, Strife._

“Yeah,” he breathed in response to her, throwing caution and his best judgment to the wind.

She laughed happily, then tugged on his tie, turning away to run toward the cab in the light drizzle, dragging him along with her. His wingtips splashing against the puddles that had formed that night, he followed behind her senselessly, opening the back door of the taxi for her so she could slide into the seat, him following right behind her.

As soon as he closed the door behind him, he pulled his PHS out of his pocket, sending a quick text to Zack.

**_Cloud_ ** _: I’m calling it a night. Taking a cab. I’ll catch you at the station bright and early._

He tipped his head back against the headrest, glancing over at Tifa and finding the streetlights beyond the car’s windows casting shadows over her face as she grinned at him, and Cloud knew that he was in too deep.

The cab pulled away into the darkness, but Cloud could only focus on her lips, imagining himself wrapping his hand around her throat.

_Strife, you dumb motherfucker._

—————— 

[  ν ] -  εγλ \- 2021 | February 14th

10:47 PM 

Alexander Building - Sector0, Midgar

The entire time they rode through the sectors, Tifa remained silent, but she did a whole lot of talking with her eyes and the languidness of her body in the backseat beside him. She leaned back against the back door, facing openly in his direction, her lips pouty and parted as her eyes traveled his body and glanced over his face, and he noticed that her legs were slightly spread where she sat, her skirt riding up high. He dropped his eyes between her thighs, unable to stop himself, and as soon as she noticed it, she laughed breathily and covered herself with his jacket.

At that point, Cloud pulled his eyes away and turned toward the window, letting out a hot breath of air and fogging the glass. As the city passed in dark, glowing shapes beyond, he wondered what the fuck he was doing, why he was sitting in the backseat of this taxi with this woman who was a suspect in a murder he was supposed to be investigating, wondering what the hell he actually thought he was going to do when he got back to her apartment with her.

It was perhaps the wisest part of his brain that knew _goddamn well_ what he was going to do.

It was just a little before eleven when they reached the Alexander. Cloud leaned forward and paid the cabbie, and Tifa sat there, waiting on his chivalry to help her out of the car. He quickly obliged her, coming around to open her door and let her out, offering her his arm again as her heels clicked the pavement.

The rain had mostly stopped, and she faced him as the cab pulled away, smoothing down his tie with her palm once more, sending his ribcage aflame before she dropped her hand and captured his, gently leading him toward the building’s front doors.

Cloud could still hear the race of his heart as they passed through the lobby, and he tried to quell it, but he’d lost all possession of his body’s most basic reactions. The same guard from earlier that afternoon was on duty, and he looked up, his eyes widening and his eyebrows raising at the sight of Cloud being pulled along by the tenant from 60D. Stupidly, Cloud smirked at him like a manic fool, and the guard said nothing as Tifa dragged him away to the elevators.

The ride up couldn’t have been more stifling or excruciating, and it only grew worse with every ding of the floors as it rose. Tifa stood close to him, her hands again toying with his tie, only this time she lowered them fully over his chest and his abdomen, testing the definition of his muscles beneath until they found his belt. She tugged on it gently a few times, laughing lightly again while Cloud held his breath, and when she dropped her hand and brushed it over the firmness of his erection, he swore aloud and fought every urge in his body to not push her up against the wall.

She giggled again and then sauntered away from him, just as the elevator dinged at her floor. Quietly, she stepped into the hall, and Cloud was following her not even a pace behind.

Her apartment was dark when they entered, the only light streaming in from the windows that led to her ill-fated balcony. She closed the door quietly behind them, locking it before she shrugged out of his jacket and then hung it on the coat rack by the door, flicking the lighting of the chandelier above and dropping the dimmer to its lowest setting. He watched her as she moved closer to him, trying not to salivate, and this time she lifted her hands and slid them inside of his blazer, shrugging it over his shoulders and pulling it away.

“Let me help you get comfortable,” she whispered to him.

She was far less gentle with it than she had been with his jacket, tossing it across the room to land on the back of her couch. Cloud’s eyes were heavy-lidded by the time her hands were back on his chest, traveling another long trail across his pectorals, only this time, she threaded her fingertips into the leather straps of his holster, curling her fingers around them, her right hand grazing across the polymer of his Glock, causing him to tense up, about to grab her forearms. But she laughed, looking up into his eyes again, the fingers of her left hand digging into his ribcage through his layers of clothing.

“Have you ever killed a man with this Glock, Detective?” she asked, her voice a dark purr.

“Maybe,” he answered, his voice dropping low and soft, tinged with an uncharacteristic playfulness he couldn’t avoid. “Maybe I’ve even killed a woman with it.”

Tifa laughed huskily, dropping her hands away and letting them hover just above his belt again. “I bet you’ve killed a few women, in more ways than one.”

She pulled away and turned, heading in the direction of her kitchen. “How about I make you another drink?”

But Cloud had had enough, the rage pulsing through his blood, fire in his lungs and his eyes blurred with desire as he watched her hips sway and her ass bounce against the tight fabric of her dress. His senses muddled, he growled low in his voice before he finally responded.

“I’ve had enough to drink tonight.”

She looked up in mild confusion at his response, but Cloud was crossing behind her in three long strides, catching up to her and instantly grabbing her from behind. He lifted her with one arm around her waist and the other under her knees, eyes scanning the vastness of her apartment as she let out a tiny, surprised yelp.

His blood was thrumming in his ears when he spotted her dining room table a few feet away, and wordlessly, he sped in its direction, dropping her on its edge and knocking her centerpiece of white stargazer lilies out of the way with one swipe of his arm.

She sat up in front of him, her breathing now quickened, her eyes lit up, and Cloud stepped between her thighs, forcing them open, sliding his hands up the tops of her thighs until they reached her hips, where he squeezed her until she gasped.

“I’m going to fucking ruin you,” he promised her, his voice gravel, every part of him now completely out of control as he slid his arms out of his holster and dumped it and its pistol in a messy sprawl on the table, sending all of it spinning.

He half expected her to cower, but she rose to the challenge, leaning forward and tossing one arm around his neck, bringing her face closer to his until all he could smell were her lingering scents of vanilla and jasmine. Her free hand lifted to the glittery clasp that held her side ponytail together, pulling it away and releasing her long, dark hair into a silky spill that fell around her shoulders and grazed across the top of the table.

“Nuh uh,” she warned, bringing her hand up to press a finger against his lips. “Kiss me properly, Detective.”

Cloud only squeezed her hips harder, digging fresh divots into them through her dress before he ran his hands up the narrow cinch of her waist, holding onto her rib cage with his thumbs just below her breasts. He stared at her, his heart pounding and his brain consumed by fire, and the smile she offered him set something medieval off in him.

He leaned forward and crashed his lips against hers, finding them softer and fuller than he had even imagined, the dampness at their seam greeting his with a singe. She moaned and then brought both hands to the sides of his face, holding him in place as she returned his passion by opening her mouth to him and darting her tongue out, hot and eager.

Cloud stopped thinking constructively from that point on, letting the reptilian part of his brain take over. He angled his head to one side, deepening their kiss, his tongue sliding past hers and then wrapping around it. She arched her back and pressed forward, moaning at the sensation, and Cloud let his hands roam, eager to feel every part of her.

He ran his palms around the front of her body and up to her breasts, squeezing them gently, feeling their soft heaviness in each of his palms, the satin of her dress smooth and cool despite the torrid heat of her skin beneath. He nipped her bottom lip, and Tifa ran her tongue across his teeth, her fingers finding his hair behind his head and curling into it.

He groaned at the sharp scrape of her fingernails against his skull, pushing his body even closer to hers, his hands snaking around her back to find the zipper of her dress. He slid his fingers up and up until he found the hem, just below her shoulder blades, and he started to tug the zipper down in a slow glide, his mouth now moving away from her lips to find her jaw and soon her earlobe.

He was kissing his way up to that damned silver earring when he worked the zipper down to her lower back. She moaned quietly beside his ear, tearing at his hair now, pressing her breasts longingly against his chest. He sucked her earring into his mouth, licking her lobe gently and pressing kisses along the shell of her ear until he heard her gasp and her hips were winding circles beneath his grip. Tifa shoved him a little, now dropping her lips to his flesh, pecking and nipping his jaw, running her tongue in hot swipes across his neck above the collar of his white dress shirt.

She moaned again when he pulled gently away, his hands coming up to the top of her now unzipped dress, hovering right above her breasts. Their eyes connected, and Cloud, feeling the fury of hot lava in his bones, stared at her, her chest beginning to heave and her eyes glittering like molten rubies, drowning himself in her before she gently nodded her consent and he began to lower her dress to her waist.

Her upper body was entirely flushed with heat, her pale breasts heavy and full, the creamy skin tinged with a red flame from the blood rush. Her nipples were pale pink and perfectly round, their flesh hardened and pert and poking forward like darts, begging for attention, attention he was fully prepared to give.

She made a quiet cooing sound as he continued to stare at her, his vision beginning to cross and fade as he admired her beauty for what felt like an endless eternity. Tifa tossed her head, causing her hair to spill around them both, tickling his forearms over his shirt, and it made Cloud painfully aware of how overdressed he was.

He backed slightly away, dropping his hands to each wrist one at a time, making quick work of unhooking both of his cufflinks. He tossed them on the table beside Tifa’s thigh, and she turned and watched them roll like a pair of dice across the wood with a clink. She turned back to Cloud and smiled, watching him as he rolled his sleeves up to his elbows.

She reached up for his tie, sliding her fingers through the knot and loosening its hold around his neck with a tug until it was wide enough to slip it over his head. He ducked while she pulled it away, then blinked in fascination when she dropped the loop of dark black silk over her own head, letting the tie fall right between her breasts like a sharp line of ink had been tattooed there.

That simple movement, accompanied by her airy giggle, was enough to set loose savagery in Cloud that he knew was unpredictable and difficult to corral. He reached up to pull the full dark, heavy silk of her hair through the loop of his tie. His hands dropped at once to her thighs, pushing the slick white material of her dress up and up, shoving her further across the table until he could push it past her hips and her bottom until her entire dress was nothing but a bunched-up band of satin around her narrow waist, the rest of her body exposed.

It was at that moment that Cloud realized that Tifa was not wearing any underwear, and as she sat forward and adjusted herself on the table in front of him, his brain nearly short-circuited.

Tifa caught where his eyes had fallen, and she widened her thighs to give him a better look, her giggle returning to a sultry laugh. Its notes sang through his blood, sending lightning bolts through his skin, and he took a step back, tipping his head to one side to let his gaze dive deeper, his blue eyes ablaze with green starbursts at the sight of her slick pink folds, shaved and glistening under a tightly trimmed strip of dark curls.

“You weren’t wearing panties all night?” he breathed out his question, stupefied, his lungs suddenly no longer working properly.

“I had a feeling I was going to run into you again tonight, Detective,” Tifa sassed, leaning back on the table, dropping her hands behind her on the table and angling her entire body at him to offer him an unabashed view.

Cloud thought back on the events of the entire night, her coquettish diffidence in the cab, of their grinding on the dance floor and their flirting over drinks at the bar, of her tense conversation with Rufus Shinra in the VIP room that he still knew nothing about, and Cloud felt his blood begin a new boil, all of it rage and passion and confusion, burning so bright that all he could do was act, his capacity to think gone forever.

He spotted the dining room chair to his left, and he kicked it out with the heel of his leather wingtip, grabbing Tifa by the waist and pulling her into his lap as he fell back into a seat on the chair. He widened his knees and sat her on his right thigh with her legs on either side of it, and he pulled her in close to him, dropping one hand to the heat between her thighs.

He lowered his fingers to the wetness there, not hesitating to press his fingers into her split of pink flesh, just as Tifa dropped her hands to both of his shoulders. Seeing where his hand was headed, she closed her eyes and dipped her head back, her hair brushing against his knees and his tie swaying between her breasts.

Cloud smirked at her open wantonness, turning his fingers and curling them upwards. They slid across her skin, dipping into her leaking opening and finding her soaked and dripping. His fingertip toyed with her there for a bit, swirling and poking gently inside of her, barely penetrating beyond his first knuckle. She mewled and sang, rolling her hips over him encouragingly, trying to get him to press deeper inside of her, but Cloud refused, playing with her listlessly while his other hand came up to the back of her throat and squeezed her gently.

She begged him in whiny coos, and eventually, Cloud leaned back in his chair, watching her work herself up and feeling a smug sense of satisfaction inflate like a balloon inside of his chest. He carefully pulled his finger out of her and drew it up higher, sliding it along her seam and trailing the soft, damp fullness of her inner lips. He found her clit, firm and hot under the pad of his finger when he grazed it, wetting it further with all of her arousal he’d just dragged out of her. She keened as soon as he made contact, and she stretched her neck backwards even further, straining her pale throat, her legs beginning to tighten and shake around his.

“Yes,” she gasped out a breathy moan, lifting herself up again and vicing both of his shoulders under her fingertips, her eyes reconnecting with his, pupils wide discs that blacked out her shining red irises like an eclipse. “Just like that, Cloud. That’s so good.”

He marveled that she was no longer calling him _Detective_ , but had relented to using his first name, and suddenly the power was folding over him, sending a surge of energy throughout every vein in his body, ready to explode.

Cloud circled her clit a few more times, savoring the feel of that tiny button beneath his fingertips, relishing the way that her mouth dropped open with wild, throaty cries, his name dripping from her tongue every time he pulled or twisted or rotated a new way. But abruptly he stopped, the control going to his head, and he pulled his hand away and brought it to the other side of her hip, holding her close against him, her center leaking all over his pants.

“Fuck yourself on me,” he breathed, leaning forward and capturing one of her nipples in his mouth, instantly offering it a lick and then a nip. She gasped, squeezing his shoulders, before she reached for his hand again and tried to press it to her aching button, her thighs gapping over his.

He snapped his hand out of her grip, capturing her wrist and twisting it behind her back. She leveled her gaze with his, a dark challenge brimming behind those thin wisps of red around her pupils, and before she could reach for him with her other hand, he quickly grabbed it and pulled it behind her too, locking both arms behind her and grasping her wrists together in one hand.

“Do what I say,” he ordered, his voice thick and heavy with lust as he settled back again against the chair. “Or else.”

Tifa’s eyes narrowed, but he saw her lips ghost into a hint of a smile, and her cheeks flushed slightly, almost as if she were embarrassed. It was the first time he had seen her break away into any sort of shyness since he’d met her, but he was too filled with ruthless passion to give a fuck at the moment.

Slowly, she relented to his demands and began to twirl her hips over him, angling her pussy as close to his thigh as she could go, biting her bottom lip as her clit brushed against the soft lambswool of his suit pants. Gripping her wrists even tighter behind her and yanking on her slightly, he watched her narrow waist as it wove circles over him, seeking relief anyway that she could. Her breasts were beginning to bloom with sweat as her hips turned, and Cloud, feeling bloodthirsty again, reached up his free hand to tighten his tie slightly around her neck before he yanked her closer to him and captured her lips in his.

He kissed her freely while Tifa moaned into his mouth, her hips needy and seeking. He massaged her tongue with his and pecked at her pouty red lips, unaware that her lipstick by now had transferred almost completely to him, was lining the sides of his throat and under his jaw from her earlier ravishment. She worked herself faster, trying to find the right pressure, but he could detect from the bright, angsty cadence of her whines that it wasn’t nearly enough.

“Cloud,” she begged him over and over again when he dropped his lips to trail her neck, pressing kisses and bites against her pulse, lowering his mouth again to a rosy pink nipple and suckling it into oblivion until he could feel her wetness leak through his pants, soaking right through and ruining them.

She was on the verge of tears when something finally broke and relented in Cloud, and he abruptly rose to his feet, carrying her with him, releasing her arms and holding her under her fleshy bottom.

He carefully placed her back on the table, but this time he forced her to lie on her back across it, her hair fanning out around her in a black spill like the spread of a peacock’s feathers, catching the blue and white shimmers from the stars in the glass beyond. He pulled her dress away from her waist, leaving her completely naked now as he tossed it away to the side. He stood between her thighs, bending her legs back and placing her feet flat on the table so that she was spread wide and on display completely for him, wet and leaking all over her polished wood table.

Cloud leaned forward and ran his hands up the slim, tight expanse of her abdomen, feeling his calloused palms scrape rough across her soft skin. The firm muscles beneath her belly twitched at his touch, and Cloud suddenly found that they looked and felt a lot more powerful and taut than he’d expect on a woman who worked as a corporate lawyer and lived a life of luxury.

In fact, he thought as his eyes scanned over the rest of her, her folded legs that were so sculpted and solid and her long arms that were so toned and fluid, her entire form looked like it had been carefully crafted, as if she spent an unusual amount of time whittling it into peak perfection.

Despite that, her curves were soft and feminine, and he didn’t care how the fuck she’d gotten into the shape she was in, all he cared about was that she was his to devour.

“Goddamnit, Tifa,” he found himself whispering as his hands drifted higher, cupping her breasts in both hands, squeezing them gently as he leaned over her. “You’re so fucking sexy.”

She attempted a smile, but he could see the desperate need still fluid behind her eyes.

“You’re pretty sexy yourself, Cloud,” she cooed up at him.

That was all it took. Cloud grabbed his tie that was still around her neck, yanking her up from the table so that he could kiss her one more time. Their lips quickly meshed, and hers were eager and seeking, her mouth wild on his. Her hands came instantly to his cheeks, her fingers curling under his jaw, her nails scraping violently across his skin and breaking it open.

He let her kiss him more, moving her lips from his and trailing them all over his face and jaw and throat, leaving the final remnants of her lipstick in stains all across his skin. She moaned out a plea, and Cloud finally let go of his tie, pushing her back down onto the table.

He heard her sigh breathily as he slid her back against the table so that he was able to bend over her, centering himself between her legs and lowering his face between her thighs. He pushed them further back with his palms, taking a moment to admire her polished toenails and her pretty feet, before he brought the fingers of both hands to her sweet, pink pussy and pulled her apart.

Tifa was gasping in anticipation while Cloud just took his time, ignoring the rough strain of his own erection as he admired her arousal that was at once blinding and intoxicating him. He could see her clit, hard and pink, quivering as she waited, her entrance tightening as she leaked and clenched in need. He started to laugh, feeling himself become giddy as if he truly was drunk, and unable to wait any longer, he dove in, dropping his lips to her flesh.

Tifa started to cry out as soon as his tongue hit the throb in her clit, coating it with the rough lave of his tongue with one long stroke. She arched her back and twisted, but Cloud was only getting started, spitting a thick glob of his saliva right on her clit and watching it drip slowly down her petals of pinkness, right inside of her. He lifted one hand, snaking it up along her body and finding a stiff nipple, circling it with his fingers and pinching it and further driving her into a frenzied state of absolute ardent pleasure.

The sight of her was beyond fascinating, and Cloud was next running his tongue up and down her entire swollen pussy in long strokes, bottom to top and down again, earning a keen of his name every time he reached the sore button at the apex of her heat. Whenever he lowered, he took a moment to press his tongue inside of her, digging as far as he could go, desperate to taste the depths of his vixen’s insides.

She was soon writhing across the table, grabbing rough fistfuls of his hair, and Cloud eventually realized he had taken the teasing to wild heights and that it was time to finally see her fall apart. He shifted slightly, pulling his hand away from her breast as he rose and pressed two fingers to her lips. He shoved past her teeth, and Tifa relented and let him in, sucking his fingers tightly and wetting them obediently before he abruptly pulled them away from her, recentering himself between her legs.

He slid his two fingers deep inside of her, pressing and curling them until he heard her cry out, knowing he had found the spot he was looking for. She moaned and undulated her hips, and Cloud dropped his mouth back to her clit, only this time he surrounded it with his lips and began to suck, hard and fast, the tip of his tongue flicking at the tip of her tiny little nub until she was whimpering and stuttering above him and ripping his hair out.

“Oh, Cloud, yes… fuck, yes. Just like that… Cloud, please… Oh…”

Her sounds drove him wild and it took every ounce of his self-control not to come all over the inside of his pants when she finally split apart with a wail, gushing a heavy wet stream all over his hand when he continued to press and poke inside of her. The amount of liquid she lost was almost alarming, and he felt himself get soaked almost to the wrist, some of her juices splashing his watch, but once again Cloud didn’t give a fuck, sustaining himself on the sounds of her screams alone.

He pulled away from her and then grabbed her hips with both hands, sliding her off of the table. His face was covered in her slick and his left hand was soaked, but he had thrown all sense of dignity past hell and was now solely focused on his own release. She was still whining and boneless when he set her to her feet, but he didn’t think about it at all, instead turning her around so her beautiful, apple-shaped bottom was facing him, and he shoved her down, bending her over her dining room table and kneeing her legs open wide.

“Shut the fuck up,” he chastised in a growl when she continued to sputter and mewl, unsure of where all of this rage was coming from.

It didn’t matter. He was working his belt open, freeing his stiff cock which was at the point of bursting. His pants slid down to his knees, and Cloud wasted no time sinking himself deep inside of her, his entire length gliding through the torrential wetness left in the wake of her first orgasm.

He quickly fell into a rough rhythm, angling for the spot inside of Tifa that he’d found with his fingers, striving to bring them both to a quick release. His name was a bright hymnal on her tongue, a scream that she shouted over and over again as he pounded her pussy mercilessly, his mind twisted with the tight, hot, unbearably wet feel of her squeezing and clenching his cock.

Of all of the women Cloud Strife had ever fucked in his entire life, none of them felt like Tifa Lockhart did, leaving him with nirvana coursing through his blood.

“Cloud….”

Tifa came faster than he expected, riding on the coattails of her first climax, and as soon as Cloud felt it rock through her body and echo in her cries, he abandoned any last iota of restraint and drove himself toward the pinnacle. It was seconds later when it tore lightning through his veins, and he felt the burst rip through him like a hurricane. Cloud pulled out of her at the very last second, emptying his release all over the fleshiness of her rear and the back of her thighs.

His vision had whited out and then faded to black, and for a moment, Cloud was afraid that he was going to pass out where he stood. His shirt was sticking to his body with sweat, his vest feeling outrageously constrictive. He steadied himself against the table with one hand beside her, drawing in quick breaths to fill his lungs. Eventually, the explosion of blinding colors danced away from behind his eyes, and the ringing in his ears stopped, and Cloud could finally hear Tifa’s gasps and sobs.

He glanced over at her, her face still pressed against the table, her entire body coated with sweat, her hair sticking to her face. Her cheeks were lined with tears, and her mouth was swollen and bruised, bright red marks lining her throat from his earlier assaults. Her chest rose and fell like gunfire, and suddenly, Cloud’s senses began to return to him, and he stared down at her and then at himself, looking over at the mess they’d made.

The savagery that had infected him earlier was draining away like poison sucked out of a wound, and Cloud found himself suddenly nervous and concerned. He adjusted his pants, his shirt now untucked and wrinkled, and he glanced down at the mess all over Tifa’s backside. He winced, looking around in desperation, and finding nothing but her crumpled dress strewn on the floor, he grabbed it quickly and used it to wipe the excess off her body.

Tifa started to hum unintelligibly, and Cloud felt new, incredibly strong urges overcome him. He reached forward and pulled her away from the table, turning her around and gathering her into his arms. She purred and breathed out his name, but he looked down at her, catching her eyes wet and glassy.

“You okay?” he asked her softly, his heart beginning to pound for brand new reasons.

He didn’t understand what was happening. He’d never been that rough with anyone before, but he’d also never been that worried about them when it was all said and done, either.

She leaned into him, wrapping her arms around him, returning his embrace. “I’m fine, Cloud,” she finally whispered, trilling around a hiccup. “You seem to know exactly how I like it, hmm? I guess you _are_ a good detective.”

That struck him in the heart in a way he was not expecting, and he found himself blushing, making him wish he could hide his face or disappear. But it was outweighed by his sudden need to comfort her, and he swept his arms under her legs, lifting her up and holding her to his chest.

“Where’s your bedroom?” he asked her after a moment, and she leaned her forehead into his chest, pointing a lazy hand toward a back corridor.

Cloud had no idea what he was doing. Now was usually the time that he picked up his coat, shoved a cigarette between his lips, and made his way home before any further attachments could develop. But tonight, he found himself carrying Tifa Lockhart through her vast, luxury apartment, finding her bedroom in the rear of the hallway.

He shouldered it open, finding it large and attractive, decorated in cool ivories with accents of violet hinted here and there. It was feminine and modern and classy, another set of floor-to-ceiling windows letting in streams of starlight. Her bed was king-sized, far too large for a single woman, draped with diaphanous curtains that hung from the ceiling and sheltered it in an iridescent net. The room was clean and neat, sexy yet refined, all of it so, so very _Tifa_.

He carried her to the center of her bed and gently placed her there, watching as her body sank into the soft, white, downy comforter. She looked up at him, a smile playing at her lips, and he realized that she had mostly recovered from the brutality of their lovemaking, propping herself up on her elbow and her scarlet eyes still wet and her makeup still smudged. Nonetheless, the look on her face was elated.

“Bathroom?” he asked, unable to understand nor quell the current stomp in his chest.

She pointed wordlessly to a door to his right, and Cloud nodded, heading in that direction. The bathroom was another display of opulence, its tile imported from Mideel, one wall an entire stretch of mirrors, the basin of the sink consuming, and the glass shower and claw-footed tub vast. He flicked on a switch, vanity lighting flooding the room and forcing himself to look in the mirror.

He looked a mess, shorn from lack of sleep and too much alcohol abuse, his eyes tired and gaunt. At that moment, he wondered what the hell Tifa had ever even seen in him that had made her want to sleep with him. But beyond that was the evidence of their passions. Her lipstick was smeared all over his lips and his cheeks, the red smatters running in streaks along the inside of his neck, alongside the bruises from her teeth.

He sighed at his appearance, feeling sleep pull at him, and he quickly washed his hands, still marveling at the way she had soaked his left hand with her stickiness. He carefully cleaned his watch, then splashed water into his face, trying to wash the residue of her lipstick away.

Eventually, he found a couple of hand towels and soaked them in warm water, and he left the bathroom and brought them to Tifa. He found her in the same position he’d left her in, his tie no longer around her neck but laying on her bedside table, Tifa staring at the door as if she had been waiting for him. Only now, she had a cigarette in hand and was blowing a plume into the air. At the sight of this, he felt his own blood begin to itch for nicotine.

He joined her quietly on the bed, and without saying a word, pulled on her hip, rolling her to her belly. She obliged without protest, blowing her hair out of her face before putting her stogie back to her lips.

Cloud began to carefully wipe the residual excess of his spend from the back of her body with the towel, gently cleaning her flesh, dipping between her thighs with a tenderness that was completely out of character. He wasn’t sure where this instinct to care was coming from; any other woman he had been with, this sort of thing had never been _his_ problem. But for whatever reason, with Tifa, it was different.

“Aren’t you sweet,” Tifa purred as if latching onto his thoughts, dropping her chin to her pillow as she continued to smoke.

“Just take your dress to the cleaners,” he responded, dabbing her affectionately.

Tifa laughed so richly that Cloud blushed again, and now he was really starting to think something was wrong with him. He finished cleaning her up, then took a moment to use the second towel to reach up and wipe her smudged kohl away from the rims of her eyes, their red depths widening at his actions. He only blushed harder, turning away and tossing both towels to the side while he slowly tried to gather his composure.

“You’re just full of surprises, aren’t you, Detective?” Tifa husked out in a light laugh, and he felt something stirring in his blood again.

“Let me get some of that,” he asked her instead of responding, nodding at the half-smoked cigarette between her fingers.

She offered it to him, and when he accepted it, she rolled to her back, stretching out with one arm behind her head, her breasts wobbling provocatively over her body as she moved. She was admiring him from where she lay - he could tell by the honey behind her eyes - and it was so distracting that he turned away and sucked on the cigarette, the sudden rush of nicotine into his blood temporarily deadening the mad rushes of anxiety that were traveling his veins.

“What are you thinking about, Cloud?” Tifa asked him softly after long moments of silence had passed.

Cloud finally turned back to her, allowing some of his defenses to crack now that he was beginning to feel some semblance of calm. “Not much,” he answered plainly. “Just, this seems like an awfully big place for one woman to live alone.”

Something faded in her eyes at the word “alone”, and Cloud wondered if he had said the wrong thing, if he was being an idiot for even making a comment like that. What did he care how or with who she lived? All any of this talk was going to do was attach him to her.

She sat up a little, meeting his eyes. “I guess you’re right,” she admitted. “But it’s been like this for me for a long time, ever since my father died. I guess… I just haven’t found the right person to move on with.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, shaking his head.

“Don’t be,” she replied gently. “It’s just the way it’s always been for me.”

“What happened?” he couldn’t stop himself from asking.

She looked down, leaning to her side again, absently beginning to pluck at loose threads in her comforter. “I’m from Nibelheim,” Tifa responded. “I was an only child, and my grandparents had all died before I was born. My mother died of pneumonia when I was only in grade school, and for years after that, it was just me and my papa. He never handled my mother’s death well, and he lost his job as the chief magistrate when he began to drink too much. So… we fell into poverty pretty quickly.”

She sighed lightly, and Cloud found himself moving closer to her.

“I worked hard in school, because I wanted to go to college and get a good job and fix things. I wanted to be a lawyer, just like my papa had been. But… about a month before I left for college, the mako reactor in town blew. My father had just started a new job there, and he was killed in the fires.”

Cloud winced, shaking his head and remembering what he had read about Nibelheim and the reactor in her file.

“That’s awful,” he responded after silence had stagnated in the air for far too long. “You know, Tifa… my mother was originally from Nibelheim. But she moved to Midgar when she got pregnant with me.”

“Is that right?” Her earlier melancholy expression was wiped away, and she was now smiling up at him again. “Look at that. If things had gone differently, we might have grown up together.”

“Yeah…” Cloud exhaled, trying to imagine what it might have been like growing up in a backwater like Nibelheim. “Maybe.”

She patted the space on the bed beside her. “C’mon, _Detective_ ,” she teased. “Let’s get some rest. I’m sure you have a busy day ahead of you solving murders.”

He nodded, leaning over to deaden the cigarette in the ashtray on her bedside table, sitting back and bringing his hands up to the buttons of his vest. But Tifa was quickly kneeling in front of him in all of her nakedness, brushing his hands to the side.

“Let me get that for you.”

Silently, he watched her nimble fingers work open the buttons of his tweed vest, sliding it over his shoulders and dropping it to the floor. She worked with the same precision to undo his dress shirt, and when it too was gone, Cloud reached down and pulled his undershirt over his head, dumping it on the floor with the rest.

He got to his feet and kicked out of his wingtips and his socks, bringing his hands to the button of his pants and sliding out of them as Tifa watched him, the tip of her tongue poking between her lips. He dropped them to the floor and stepped out of them, then started to crawl into her bed, the back of his mind still pounding his skull for his complete lack of sanity for staying the night with this woman.

She stopped him, though, pulling a manicured finger through the waistband of his briefs, snapping it against his skin.

“Take these off, too.”

Cloud didn’t know why he was blushing again, but almost shyly, he lowered his underwear until he was standing there, matching her state of complete undress. She was simpering wickedly at him, and already, his dick was growing hard again. 

“Happy Valentine’s Day, Cloud,” Tifa told him then, for the second time that day.

Tifa reached over and shut off her bedside lamp and pulled the canopy netting of her bed closed around them, then reached for Cloud’s hand in the darkness, pulling him into bed with her. He slipped under the covers beside her, his arms snaking around her lithe, svelt body while her hands came up to the sides of his face, pulling him in for a deep, long, impassioned kiss.

And somehow, Cloud found himself rolling on top of her, holding her tight and pressing himself inside of her, making love to her slow and deep as if she were his wife.

_What the fuck was wrong with him?_

—————— 

[  ν ] -  εγλ \- 2021 | February 15th

8:22 AM 

Alexander Building - Sector0, Midgar

Cloud woke up to the blare of his PHS ringing somewhere to his left, hearing its dreadful, singsong melody pierce the whiskey and sex-high induced sleep he’d lulled happily through for the last seven hours. He groaned, glancing up at the ceiling, seeing nothing but wispy canopy netting floating around him, finding himself wrapped in fluffy white sheets.

Memories of the night before slowly returning to him, Cloud turned to his right to find a messy splash of black hair haloed in every direction on the pillow beside him. He caught a glimpse of Tifa’s sharp, pale shoulder, and he sighed and shook his head, wondering why the fuck he had stayed here all night and when he had gone so far off the deep end.

He pushed aside the curtains of the canopy and reached for his pants, digging through his pockets until he found his PHS. He glanced at the call display, groaning when he saw Zack’s name.

“Hello.”

“Where the fuck you been, man?” his partner demanded instantly, his voice nearing a shriek. “And how are you gonna just leave me high and dry at the club like that? I’ve been calling and texting you all night. Why don’t you pick up your phone!?”

Cloud groaned audibly. “I told you,” he gruffed, “I was tired. There were no leads there, anyway. Just a bunch of spoiled Shinra execs and middle managers and SOLDIER boys. Barret just wanted to get us out of the station with busy work.”

“You won’t be saying that in the next five seconds,” Zack huffed. “Listen, you need to get your ass moving _now_. A lot of shit has popped off in the last few hours.”

“Like what?” Cloud asked, feeling his head begin to pound again.

“You want the good news or the bad news first?” 

“Give me the bad,” Cloud sighed, the irritation threading itself into his veins.

“There’s been another homicide,” Zack announced. “In the same goddamn club where Rufus had his party last night, right under our fucking noses, _partner_.”

Cloud sat up a little straighter, glancing back at Tifa and finding her still sound asleep, her breathing even and rhythmic. “What?”

“Lazard Deusericus,” Zack bleated. “Director of SOLDIER and bastard half-brother to Rufus Shinra. Found dead in the club’s basement by a custodial worker sometime around five this morning, cleaning up after the party. Same MO - shot through the heart from behind, smeared with red lipstick, left with an earring.

“What the fuck,” Cloud couldn’t stop himself from swearing.

“Coroner already thinks the time of death is as early as seven or eight PM, before we got to the club. Poor guy was starting to rot right under our feet. Listen, you need to just get down to the station. I already worked the crime scene and I covered for you to Wallace. But the Captain is about to blow a gasket, and if you don’t get down here soon, there’s no telling what he might do.”

Cloud could only shake his head, the back of his mind already imagining Cid Highwind in a vulgar rage, tearing up the entire Midgar City Public Security Department.

“What’s the good news?” Cloud finally asked, already reaching for the rest of his clothes.

“Ah,” Zack joshed lightly. “Forensics came back last night with results from your girl Lockhart’s cigarette butt we collected during her interrogation. It’s a direct match for the smears on our first three vics, and we’re testing the smudge on Deusericus now. No DNA, but it’s the same exact brand and chemical composite. Gives us just enough to put her at the top of our list of suspects, knocking Ms. Scarlet Price out of the top spot.”

But Cloud had already stopped listening. He nearly dropped his phone, turning again to Tifa Lockhart behind him, still deep in sleep, though now she’d rolled slightly to her side so that he could see the profile of her face, a contented smile pulling at her lips as she snoozed.

Cloud’s heart slammed into his ribcage like a runaway train, knowing he had just thrown himself into deep shit.

_Fuck. Fuck._

_FUCK._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! follow me on twitter @nitezintodreamz


	3. Part Three - Game of Lies

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heya!
> 
> Thank you to everyone who is still reading. I'm super grateful for all of the love. And for every one who reviewed, wow! I can't express how much I am floored by the love in your comments! THANK YOU.
> 
> Special thank you to Space who beta'd the SHIT out of this chapter. Lol
> 
> Also, this fandom is too perfect and kind, and I have to highlight the amazing fanart that has come out of this fic!!!
> 
> @perlmuttt - https://twitter.com/Perlmuttt/status/1361447753931509762?s=20
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> THANK YOU ALL!!!!
> 
> Hope you enjoy the chapter.

Valentine’s Day Massacre

* * *

** Part Three - Game of Lies **

[  ν ] -  εγλ \- 2021 | February 15th

8:33 AM 

Alexander Building - Sector0, Midgar

Cloud stood in the center of Tifa’s dining room, his mind ablaze with a mild but rapidly escalating sense of panic as he gathered his gun and holster that he had so haphazardly thrown across the table the night before in a mad rush to get between her thighs. He shrugged into it, trying to push down the sick feeling that was rising in the center of his gut, finding his blazer strewn in a wrinkled heap on her couch and dragging his arms through it before pulling on his jacket.

He had left Tifa still snug under the plush white coverlet of her bed, a tangle of pale skin and dark hair, long slender limbs and full curves that had been curled up at his side since late the night before. Ever since the moment he had numbly hung up his PHS after his call with Zack, he had found himself staring mystified at Tifa Lockhart for a long, dumbfounded moment before he pulled his wits together and quickly dragged himself back into his clothes and shoes.

Now, his mouth filled with the bad taste of sleep and his brain still filled with a dull ache, Cloud found his thoughts befuddled but determined to work his way out of the predicament he found himself in as quickly as possible. The events of the night before, though, scrolled through this head on an endless film reel, Tifa’s nakedness and the press of their bodies together and her overwhelmingly sweet scents impressed upon him forever.

Tearing his fingers through his hair a final time, Cloud reminded himself over and over again, his own voice in the back of his mind weakening, that he had no attachment to this woman who was now their prime suspect, that the events of the night before had simply been a lapse of his own judgment that could easily be corrected if he cut off all ties now and just focused on doing his job.

Right?

Cloud was trying not to answer himself, instead reaching for Tifa’s front door when he felt something soft and warm press just below his left shoulder blade. He was so startled by the sudden contact that he nearly leaped out of his shoes.

“Cloud?”

Tifa was standing right behind him, her claret eyes wide but still glassy from sleep. She was wearing a silk robe that was a deep lilac hue, and somehow the shade made her flushed, creamy skin even more delectable. It was tied loosely around her waist, leaving the front of it to expose just a little too much of the soft swell of her breasts. Her hair was tousled and messy, long and thick around her shoulders but with errant strands haloing her head. Her lips were bare, but soft and wet from her own saliva, red from her own blood.

He realized he was staring at her, struck and enraptured, his hand now glued to the doorknob but unable to turn.

How the hell did she creep up on him so quietly?

The corner of her lips turned up into the barest hint of a smile. “Were you trying to sneak out on me, _Detective_?” she asked him softly, her voice betraying a blend of disappointment and coquettish coyness. “I was so upset when I woke up and found you weren’t next to me.”

Cloud simultaneously hated and loved the sound of her voice. It did something to his insides, its every cadence unraveling him to the point of lunacy. He swallowed thickly, allowing his eyes to meet hers.

“I need to get back to work,” he answered lamely, unable to stop himself from rubbing the back of his neck. Why was she making him so nervous? “I didn’t want to wake you. You looked like you needed your rest.”

She released a laugh that came out more like a scoff, and she took another step closer to him, causing him to groan low in the back of his throat when he caught the devilish sparkle in the red of her eyes. “Is that so?” she teased him, her hands coming up to his throat. She adjusted his tie carefully, pulling at the knot where he had left it largely disheveled. “Well, I hope you have a good day, then. Maybe I can see you tonight?”

The cadence in her voice lilted so brightly and hopefully that Cloud found himself at war inside, his better instincts falling to the wayside while his mouth started to move on its own.

“Maybe. We’ll see,” he answered foolishly.

She was smiling fully now, and Cloud was suddenly too hot, desperate to get out of her apartment before he suffocated to death. Needing to cut off contact before he did something even stupider, Cloud nodded his head at her and pulled her door open to leave.

But Tifa was now grabbing at his lapels, pulling him in her direction and forcing him to bend down slightly to her level. His sapphire-blue eyes widened with surprise, but he didn’t have any time to react before she was crushing her lips against his in a deep kiss, her tongue instantly pushing past the line of his teeth.

It was over as quickly as it had started, but the impression had been made nonetheless. Cloud blinked in shock when she dragged her soft mouth away from his and then shoved him through the doorway.

“I’ll see you later, Detective,” she bade him, winking with a flutter of her lashes.

And then the door was closed, Cloud left standing in the hallway with his lips burning and his heart slamming.

In a fog, he moved through the next phase of the morning, unable to process fully the events of the last few hours. His vehicle still parked at the station, Cloud called a taxi to take him back to his apartment in Sector2 so that he could wash the scents of sweat and sex off of his skin and so that he could change into a clean suit that wasn’t stained with the residuals of their lovemaking. He sat in the backseat of the cab with a cigarette pressed between his lips, the smoke clouding the backseat while his thoughts were clouded by Tifa.

As he arrived at his apartment and showered and changed into a fresh, three-piece navy blue plaid suit with a pale blue dress shirt underneath, Cloud winced at his reflection in his mirror and the blooms of bright red and purple marks across his neck, the pink scratches under his chin and along the sides of his jaw. He sighed, swallowing back a few painkillers before he left again and caught another taxi back to Sector0 to the precinct.

Throughout all of this, he stumbled absently through his thoughts, wondering what the hell was wrong with him and how he was going to fix the huge mess he found himself in. Zack’s words continued to ring out to him over and over again, reminding him that he had just spent the night buried deep inside of a woman who was likely responsible now for the deaths of five men, that he had had his face between her legs and that their bodies had been joined together in ways that were not only unprofessional and unbecoming on his part but fully filthy under any circumstances. 

All it would take was for him to have his back turned to her for too long, he thought, remembering the press of her palm against his shoulder, for him to end up with a bullet through his heart the way those poor bastards had ended up.

Cloud felt himself heating up again as he stared out of the window of the back seat of the taxi, watching Midgar’s streets pass by, now busy with the early morning traffic. He was set off both by the unnerving reality of the situation he had walked himself into willingly and by the way that his feelings were becoming unraveled by Tifa Lockhart, blurring the lines between common sense and reality and fantasy and leaving him wondering when and how he had fallen so completely out of control of his own motives.

His mind was a battlefield, his sanest thoughts urging him to drop all of his yearnings and to do his level best to ensure that they saw this case to completion without any further entanglements, whether or not Tifa truly became the one who ended up behind bars. But a louder, more oppressive and more insistent part of his brain, driven purely by emotion and feeling and need, was hung up on the sadness of her voice when she talked about her hometown and her father and living alone in Midgar, was caught in the feel of her lips against his and her tastes and the sweet, gripping warmth of her insides. He found himself daydreaming about being on top of her again, staring deep into honey-red eyes that widened with pleasure as her mouth gaped open in a scream of his name every time he pushed back into her.

“That’ll be 45 gil, sir.”

Cloud snapped out of it, tearing away from his brutal thoughts and glancing at the cabbie before reaching for his wallet. Just beyond, Midgar Public Security Precinct 0 loomed overhead, reminding Cloud that he needed to get his head in the game and out of the mist of Tifa, that he needed to focus.

A light rain was beginning to darken the sky again, and Cloud narrowed his eyes at the sky, shaking his head out.

She was going to be the death of him.

In more ways than one, perhaps.

* * *

[  ν ] -  εγλ \- 2021 | February 15th

9:41 AM 

Sector0 Public Security Precinct - Autopsy Room B

As soon as he stepped inside the station, Wedge, a portly analyst in the homicide division who worked closely alongside Biggs, immediately redirected Cloud toward the basement where the autopsy rooms were located. Suppressing a groan, Cloud dropped his hands into his pockets and made his way down the stairs and through the coolness of the lower corridor, eventually finding the autopsy room, already hearing Barret’s brusque cusses through the doorway. Heaving a slight sigh, he stepped inside, toeing the door open before he looked around.

He found his partner and the lieutenant crowded around the autopsy table along with a goateed coroner who was peering over the body, one hand to his chin. As soon as he entered the room, all eyes turned to him.

Zack was standing with his arms crossed over his chest, also wearing a clean suit and appearing freshly showered for the day. Wallace stood on the opposite side of the table, holding a paper cup of coffee in one hand, leveling an angry glower at Cloud as soon as he entered the cold, sterile room. 

“Strife?” the Lieutenant instantly barked. “The hell you been?”

Cloud ignored him completely, instead taking a step up to the table, staring down at the corpse that was stretched out across the steel surface. The man was young, perhaps in his mid to late thirties, his golden-blonde hair reaching his shoulders and parted down the middle. Already, his skin had grown ashen and sallow. His chest was bared, and he was covered from the waist down with a thin sheet. 

“What we got here?” Cloud asked instead.

Barret Wallace grimaced, taking a threatening step forward. “Got the nerve to show up late and then start issuing me orders,” he groused. “Fair, fill your dumbass of a partner in, please.”

Zack took a step around the gurney, closer to Cloud. “Lazard Deusericus. Like I told you on the phone, he was found dead at the Seventh Heaven club during the Shinra party with the same type of bullet wound and calling card as inflicted on our V-Day vics. But… there are some other interesting things about this vic that might help us finally catch a break.”

“Like what?” Cloud asked, just as the coroner, a pleasant-faced middle-aged man by the name of Wymer, pulled at Lazard’s eyelids one by one, exposing pale, dead blue eyes. The sight of them rode a cold chill through Cloud’s veins.

“Prints,” Wymer responded. “Your lady friend wasn’t so neat this time.”

“I’ve sent them to the lab with Biggs already,” Zack trumpeted triumphantly. “He’s running it through the database now.”

Cloud only nodded, shifting his weight where he stood and then crossing his arms over his chest. For a brief moment, Tifa flashed across his mind, and he imagined her standing behind the Director of SOLDIER, the mouth of her revolver smoking after she’d blown a hole clean through him.

Cloud was unnerved by how this turned him on as much as it scared the hell out of him.

“Time of death was definitely before eight?” he asked, trying to bury the wildness of his thoughts.

“As early as six or six-thirty, to be honest,” Wymer replied. “Rigor mortis had already set in by the time he was found.”

“Anything else we should know from the body?” 

Wymer leaned back, giving Lazard’s pallid, lifeless form another sweeping once over. “Not at this time, I’d wager. I’m running some tox analysis to see if there’s anything at play here, but just like your four vics from the night before, this looks pretty cut and dry.”

“Good thing we at least got prints this time, aye Wallace?” Zack cheered. Cloud could see the way that Barret’s face twisted up, but before he could respond, there was a knock on the doorframe.

“Hey, guys?”

Wedge stood there, nervously peering into the autopsy room. Cloud turned, dropping his hands to his pockets again.

“What is it?” Barret practically shouted.

“Captain Highwind wants to see you all in his office, and in a big hurry.”

Barret growled in response and barreled his way out of the room, shoving past Cloud with his gunarm, causing him to narrow his eyes in irritation. He caught Zack glancing over him, shaking his head with a dopey grin on his face.

Cloud expelled a sigh and left the autopsy room, Wymer still carefully inspecting the body for any additional clues. As he made his way up the stairs again, Zack fell in step beside him.

“Where the hell were you last night?” he demanded, his voice falling into a harsh whisper.

Not this shit again _._ “I told you,” Cloud grumbled, rolling his eyes, “I was tired. I went home.”

Zack was scoffing just as they made it to the landing. Barret had already thundered his way down the hallway back into the detective’s bureau, en route to Cid’s office, clearing the hallway of the law enforcement agents who milled about and got into his way. Zack stopped him at the top of the stairs, grabbing him by both shoulders and turning him to face him under the harsh fluorescent lighting overhead.

“Nice try, renegade,” Zack scoffed. “Tired, my ass. Is that why you’re covered in bruises and scratches? You look like you got ambushed by a pack of bugaboos.”

Cloud angrily shrugged out of Zack’s hold, an aggrieved pout falling across his lips. “Come off of it, man.”

“You were with a woman last night, weren’t you?”

“And?” Cloud shot back nastily, feeling a distinct heat stain his cheeks.

Zack was narrowing his aquamarine irises at Cloud as he backed away from him. Daybreak suddenly lit up behind his eyes, and he was widening them as he began to shake his head.

“Wait a minute,” he chuffed, “You were with that Lockhart broad, weren’t you?”

Cloud instantly looked up at him, the familiar panic rising again and this time colored by embarrassment. “No, I - “

“Don’t lie,” Zack interrupted. “Ten years on the force, Cloud. You know you can’t lie to me.”

Cloud only sighed, turning away again, his face melting from the fire.

“Are you crazy?” Zack asked in disbelief. “She’s our number one suspect, Strife! I mean… the evidence is circumstantial at this point, but it’s enough to raise seven dozen red flags. And you’re sleeping with her?”

“I -“ Cloud tried to explain, but it was fruitless, his words sputtering and dying in his throat.

“Strife! Fair!” Barret was howling from down the hall. “The hell y’all waiting for?”

He disappeared into Cid’s office with a scowl, but Zack was still leveling a disbelieving stare at Cloud.

“Man, I knew you were stupid as hell and that you had issues. But I didn’t know you were this bad. I hope it was worth it.”

“Shut up,” Cloud finally snapped, turning away and striding for Cid’s office, Zack laughing richly but darkly behind him.

They stepped inside, the cigarette smoke instantly burning Cloud’s eyes and reminding him how badly his blood was lacking the cool pulse of nicotine in its own flow. He stepped inside, finding Barret leaning against one wall with his arms crossed, Biggs standing beside him with an open laptop cradled in his arms.

Today, the Captain was seated at his desk, leaning over it with his head in both hands, his eyes bloodshot and a cigarette dangling between his lips. His five o’clock shadow was growing out into a full, scruffy beard, thick salt and pepper patches blending with the dirty blonde. His brow was furrowed, and he was staring down at a stack of papers, slowly shaking his head as they entered.

“Shut the door,” he ordered, and Zack quietly closed it behind them.

A moment passed, and Cid sat back, leaning into his chair and looking up at the group. He pulled his cigarette from his lips, blowing a thick plume into the air as he let his eyes fall over each of them, lingering for a little too long over Cloud, who instantly felt unmasked for all of his sins of the past twenty-four hours.

“This is a fuckin’ nightmare,” Cid finally exhaled, rising to his feet. “The brother of the president. As if an urban planning executive and a bunch of Turks wasn’t bad enough, the President’s own kin is dead. Rufus has been on the warpath since the body was found. Might as well file for retirement now.”

“It can’t be that bad, Cap,” Zack began, but Cid was instantly aflame.

“Shut the hell up, Fair!” he swore, banging his fist on the table. “I’m running out of patience with you and your fly-by-night partner here and this entire goddamn case. Heidegger is making threats now. We have thirty-six hours to wrap up this case, or this entire division is facing the chopping block.”

Barret Wallace made a low, grousing sound deep in the back of his throat.

“Sir,” Biggs spoke up, stepping forward with the laptop. “I have some lab analysis that might be helpful to the case.”

“Shoot,” Cid said resignedly, falling back into his chair.

Biggs nodded, setting his laptop down on the edge of Cid’s desk. “Well, first thing’s first. I ran the prints we found on Deusericus. Unfortunately, there was no match in the system, so whoever our killer is, she’s got no priors.”

“Of course,” Cloud murmured, thinking of Tifa again.

“But the good news is,” Biggs went on, “Fair picked up a napkin left behind by Scarlet Price at Seventh Heaven last night. I was able to run it by the lab as well.”

“Since some of us were actually working last night,” Zack gibed, and Cloud elbowed him in the ribs.

“Ouch!” 

“Ms. Price wears the same brand of lipstick that Ms. Lockhart does,” Biggs continued, ignoring their antics. “Only last night, she was wearing Red No. 3, while the vics were stained with Red No. 7, which is what was all over the cigarette Lockhart left behind after her interrogation. Still, it’s a close enough connection to keep Price in the running while we try to get more substantial evidence and nail these prints.”

“Who makes the lipstick?” Cloud asked.

“A company called Snow Cosmetics,” Biggs answered. “A small, exclusive brand that is manufactured out in the Icicle Region. They use organic and unrefined materials, which is why it was so easy to match the chemical composites with the stains left on the vics between what was left behind by our two suspects. Interestingly enough, the Shinra Business Division has been trying to acquire them for some time now to add to its portfolio of beauty distributors.”

Cloud thought this over, finding it an intriguing if not somewhat irrelevant detail. “It’s not enough,” he remarked with a toss of his head, his heart beginning to race as he thought about Tifa again. “We can’t charge anybody because of a brand of lipstick. Half of the women in this city probably wear the same shade and brand.”

Zack just side-eyed him, an eyebrow raised.

“I can’t believe I’m saying this,” the Captain interjected, “But Strife is right. This evidence is barely circumstantial. We need to confirm those prints before we can move.”

Cid sat back, puffing on his cigarette, falling deep into thought. Barret took a step forward.

“I suggest a sting,” he said. “Put our two gumshoes to work. Have ‘em tail Price and Lockhart, find out their habits, where they spend most of their time and with whom. Follow ‘em until you can pick up anything that they leave their pretty little mitts on - a fork, a cigarette, a glass - and bring that shit in for analysis. They’re bound to leave their prints somewhere. Just a matter of you two idiots finding the right opportunity and getting ahold of it.”

Cid banged on his desk twice with his fist. “Now that’s the kinda goddamn police work I like to see,” he woofed. “Fair, you tail Lockhart. Strife, follow that crazy bitch Scarlet, and neither of you come back until you have something that we can use in a goddamn court of law.”

“Aye, aye, Captain,” Zack saluted, winking at Cloud on his way out.

There was nothing left to be said on the matter, and with a light sigh, his insides electrified again, Cloud left Cid’s office and caught up to Zack in the detective’s bureau, watching as his partner slid his arms through his jacket and reached for his keys. Cloud cornered him in front of his desk.

“Switch with me.”

“What?” Zack asked, popping and adjusting his collar.

“Switch with me,” Cloud repeated. “You take Price. Let me go after Lockhart.”

“Oh, no you don’t,” Zack responded with a light laugh. “You heard the Captain, Strife. All of our asses are on the line for this one, pal. I’m not putting my livelihood at risk cause you wanna stick your dick back into the Lockhart woman’s honeypot. I got two kids at home.”

Zack’s voice was entirely too loud, and Cloud grimaced, looking around at the volley of other law enforcement that passed by as he took a step closer to Zack.

“That’s not it,” he whispered. “Listen… she’s starting to trust me. I can get close to her and get the evidence we need in no time. But you’ll just scare her off. She’s smart.”

Zack sighed, dropping a palm to his desk in exasperation. “You sure about this?” he asked. “I’m worried about you. You seem like you’re way in over your head over this broad.”

Cloud shrugged. “It’s not like that,” he insisted, his chest engulfed by the pressure of his lies. “You know me, Zack, I’m not interested. Not like that, anyway.”

Zack stared at him for a moment, his eyes narrowed as twin pairs of mako blues, his a bright turquoise and Cloud’s a deep royal blue, met and meshed. Cloud let him study him, wondering if his partner and best friend could hear the steady stammer of his heart as it ran up against his ribcage.

Finally, Zack relented, stepping away from Cloud. “…Fine. But you better hold your shit together. I don’t want to have to find you face down with a bullet in your back.”

“Don’t worry about me,” Cloud reassured.

Zack just made a face. “Be careful, partner,” he said with a wave of his hand in the air.

Cloud watched him go, but already, he was thinking about Tifa, once again questioning his own sanity, willing himself to focus on the task at hand just as much as he found himself wondering if he’d have an opportunity to throw her up against a wall before the night was done.

* * *

[  ν ] -  εγλ \- 2021 | February 15th

11:43 AM 

Shinra Tower - Sector0, Midgar

Figuring out Tifa’s routine and finding her that afternoon had only taken a small degree of basic detective work to navigate through, and after a series of phone calls to her apartment complex and the Shinra Headquarters and simple internet and social media searches with Biggs, Cloud determined that Tifa worked at an office on the sixtieth floor of the Shinra Tower and that she typically left for lunch around noon. 

As a badged member of the Public Security force, getting inside of the Tower and making his way around was an easy enough feat. Nonetheless, showing up at Tifa’s place of work would only stir suspicion, and so Cloud decided to lay low, slouched in the front seat of his sedan, a cigarette between two fingers and his eyes trained on the front door as he waited for a glimpse of her. 

Time stretched on as the minutes dragged, and Cloud found himself navigating through the confusion of his thoughts again, wondering if he was actually as clever as he was priding himself for being by turning his complicated relationship with Tifa Lockhart into an asset in the case, or if he were only further miring himself into shit. He slid deeper into his seat, blowing smoke out of a crack in the driver side window, his mind torn through the lingering thoughts of the previous night, of Tifa’s confectionary and feminine scents draping over him, of her tight, wet, enveloping warmth, of her bright cries of his name and the lingering pains she’d left marked into his skin that he could still feel. 

He thought again of her soft, whispered sentiments to him before they’d crawled under the sheets together, how she’d shared little tidbits of her life and her loneliness with him. He wondered if she had been lying, if her words had all been fabrications meant to melt him further and tear down his defenses so that he would ignore how it was growing more and more obvious that she was, in some way, deeply interconnected with this case, if not the killer herself. 

The more that he thought about it, though, the more that he found himself conflicted. As far as the information available in the public records database was concerned, Tifa’s story checked out. Nothing, it seemed, that she had told him had been an outright lie.

And he was still confused about her motives. Mulling it over as he stared up at the gleaming metallic facade of the Shinra Tower, he considered the possibility that Tifa was out for blood against Shinra for the reactor incident that had killed her father all those years ago. It would make sense, he supposed, for her to exact her revenge for such a tragedy of malpractice and misconduct, and, quite frankly, absolute greed by offing Shinra executives. Still, something about the brutality of the killings didn’t quite match her soft and gentle nature.

He thought again, though, about some of the inherent contradictions that existed in Tifa that had caught him off guard, stinging the back of his brain whenever he spent any time around her and they rose to the forefront of his thoughts. There was the distinct roughness of her hands, a sharp contrast to the softness of the rest of her, knuckles that were scarred and palms that were calloused. Then there was the sturdiness of her form, statuesque and feminine curves that were soft to the touch but belied so much hidden power with their strength and their tautness that it was almost jarring.

He was dissecting that thought in particular when he realized that Tifa was emerging from the glass front doors of the Shinra Tower, stepping out onto the sidewalk in a pair of shining black stilettos that had at least four-inch heels. Cloud’s eyes widened at the sight of her, and he sat up slightly, blinking at her as he watched her move down the sidewalk from his vehicle.

She was wearing a skirt, but he couldn’t see her outfit beneath the tailored black trench coat she wore, belted at the waist and cut a few inches above her knees. Her sculpted legs shimmered in sheer nylons beneath the mid-afternoon sun, her long dark hair pulled up into a high ponytail that roped down her back, fringe spilling into her face, her eyes sheltered by cat-eye framed sunglasses.

Cloud watched her hips sway, her hands in her pockets as she made her way down the block and stopped beside a white stretch limousine. Instantly, his eyes narrowed, and he thought again about Rufus Shinra and her terse conversation with him at Seventh Heaven the night before, and he sat up fully behind the wheel, watching Tifa slide into the back of the vehicle before it pulled away from the curb ahead of him.

Without hesitation, Cloud tossed his cigarette out of the window and threw his car into drive.

He followed the limousine for a few blocks, switching lanes and falling a couple of cars behind to throw off suspicion that he was following but keeping his eyes trained on the white vehicle. It turned and veered off into Sector0, emerging among a downtown district that was dotted by shops and restaurants and bars. The limousine pulled up in front of a dark eatery called The Office, and Cloud parked his cruiser on the street half a block away.

He reached into his center console for his binoculars, pulling them out and sliding back in his seat as he observed the white limo from beneath the cover of a large oak tree he’d parked beneath. He watched as the driver, dressed in dark livery, climbed out of the car first, making his way to the rear of the car to open the passenger side door. Tifa stepped out, one long, pale, shining leg emerging, her black pump greeting the asphalt of the sidewalk as she emerged. For reasons he didn’t understand at that moment, Cloud held his breath, watching as Tifa stood and smoothed her hands over the front of her coat, a graceful smile pulling at her lips. He watched her as she folded her arms behind her back, that bashful but somehow unmistakable sexy maneuver she had pulled with him the night he’d dropped her off in front of her apartment.

It was only yesterday, but it seemed like it had been weeks and weeks ago.

Cloud sat up when he saw another figure emerge. Ensconced in all white, Rufus Shinra ducked out of the car, the sunlight instantly catching a glimmer in his pale flaxen hair, a lock of it dropping into his forehead. Cloud felt something black and ugly begin to pool and simmer in his gut like boiling hot tar at the sight of him, dressed head to toe in tailored silk and cashmere, and his eyes narrowed as he watched Rufus step up to Tifa and offer her his arm.

Cloud didn’t understand the furious jealousy that bubbled like lava inside of him as he watched Tifa’s hips move beside Rufus as they made their way inside of The Office, arm in arm. It was irrational; he was here to gather information about a case, to maybe pick up a piece of evidence that might implicate her in the crimes that were rocking the very company that Rufus Shinra led. In fact, the dull, still-operational part of his brain tried to reason, her proximity to Rufus - especially since she no longer worked directly for him - should have sent off every red flag in his brain.

But Cloud was caught up in thoughts and feelings that had nothing to do with the brutal murders of five men and everything to do with the fact that he was now sprung off of Tifa, that their behavior the night before had left his deepest, most hidden feelings and thoughts wishing she had somehow become his.

_Get it the fuck together, Strife_.

He tried to fling these invasive and counterproductive thoughts from his head, but he couldn’t be sure whether it was his curiosity and drive to solve this case or his desperation to find out why Tifa was so close to Rufus Shinra that compelled him to act. Either way, he found himself killing the car’s engine, shoving his keys into his pockets and grabbing his fedora from the back seat as he made his way across the street in the direction of The Office.

By the time he caught up to the quiet but exclusive restaurant, Rufus and Tifa had already disappeared inside. He hovered by the glass windows, peering inside to catch a glimpse of the pair still with their arms looped together before a host led them away, deeper inside and out of sight. Cloud chewed the inside of his lip, feeling the angry heat pucker and swell inside of him, his right hand twitching and clenching involuntarily before he finally pulled his fedora lower over his head and made his way inside of the establishment.

It was dark and smoky inside, not uncommon for most of this sector’s more exclusive bars, establishments meant to provide privacy and quiet to upper-class patrons who were looking to escape the grind of the fast-paced business and finance world for a few hours. Cloud looked around, noting that the lunch crowd was packed with Shinra-types, men and women wrapped in well-tailored suits with perfectly coiffed hairstyles and designer glasses and handbags, cufflinks that sparkled under the low lighting. Even though it was only lunchtime, Cloud could smell the booze in the air, sweet and pungent, and it lit up the constant urges that lived in his own blood.

“Can I help you, sir?”

Cloud turned to find a young hostess standing in front of him, a painted pink smile on her face that was stretched far too wide to be genuine. Cloud wasted no time getting to business, reaching inside of his vest and pulling out his badge.

“I’m here on official business of Public Security,” he told her, giving her eyes only seconds to read his badge before he tucked it away. “I’m part of the personal security detail of President Rufus Shinra, who just entered a few moments ago.”

The woman’s smile faltered, but she picked up a menu from her stand and nodded. “Of course,” she agreed. “Would you like to join him?”

“Where’s he sitting?”

“He has a preferred booth in the rear,” she responded. “We reserved it for the President only.”

“Just get me a seat nearby,” Cloud told her. “A booth.”

She nodded, and then led him deeper into the restaurant, the cigarette smoke becoming more ashen and thick the farther they went. Cloud lowered his fedora once more, keeping his eyes downcast as they swept the room, careful not to blow his cover.

He spotted Tifa and Rufus sitting across from one another at a booth in the corner of the rear of the dining room, and before the hostess could go any further Cloud stopped her by a booth that was positioned diagonally across the room, just out of their view. 

“Right here is fine.”

The hostess nodded, dropping the menu in front of him.

“Someone will be right with you.”

“All I want is a bourbon on the rocks,” Cloud told her, pushing the menu back in her direction. 

She nodded, her lips pursed thin, picking up the menu and disappearing with it.

Cloud sighed and settled into his seat, folding his arms over his chest as he watched Tifa and Rufus from across the room. From where he sat, Rufus was facing in his direction, all smug simper, leaning back in his seat with one arm stretched across the top of the booth. His eyes were pale and joyless, even when he laughed in response to something Tifa said.

Cloud could only catch the profile of Tifa’s face from his angle, but he couldn’t stop himself from admiring it, the curve of her cheek and the pout of her red mouth, the dark curl of her lashes every time she blinked. He found himself staring endlessly at her, unable to pull away, watching her lips move and her hands gesture in front of her. She had shed her jacket, and was dressed in a white silk blouse, form-fitting just enough that it accentuated her full breasts and the narrowness of her waist where it was tucked into her black pencil skirt.

A waiter came around with his bourbon, and Cloud sipped it, letting the alcohol burn his throat and greet his blood with the welcome burst of intoxication and warmth that he hadn’t felt since the night before. It quelled some of the vengeful possession that rose up inside of him every time he glanced over at Rufus and caught the way a pale eyebrow went up in response to Tifa’s words or the way he let out a light chuckle, the corner of his lips pulling back. 

Cloud curled his fingers around his glass, wondering how Rufus could behave so cavalierly and so dismissively following not only the deaths of so many of his top employees but most importantly, the death of his own half-brother.

Cloud was soon on his second drink, thinking through the fact that it was a secret to no one that the two Shinra heirs had quite the public rivalry. Lazard had grown up largely ostracized from his father and his fortune, and the media had never failed to report this fact over the years. Before Cloud had even been born, it had been one of the biggest scandals to rock the Shinra Corporation and perhaps all of Gaia, and it still remained one of the more talked about stories of lore of the former President Shinra and his family that had been plagued by secrets and lies. Lazard had eventually come to work for the conglomerate from which he’d been shunned, but that didn’t stop the fact that he and Rufus never got along and that Rufus had taken every opportunity he could to step on his neck, to show his older brother who was the only truly legitimate heir to the Shinra seat of power.

Cloud couldn’t give a fuck about any of this. He did, however, think that despite the nuances of their relationship, that Rufus would be somewhat distraught over the murder of his own brother.

But then, Rufus wasn’t known for being particularly emotive over anything. In fact, his legacy of success as both the company’s Vice President and now its President had been built on his propensity for ruthlessness both inside and outside of the board room. He was known to deploy the Turks to threaten or coerce his business rivals, and the predatory nature of Shinra’s business practices had only increased tenfold since he had taken over.

As Cloud sat there, nursing his second drink, he found himself wondering how someone like Tifa could have ever served him as his personal attorney, how she could spend any time around a man like that at all.

He was too far away to hear their conversation, so he focused on their body language, watching as Tifa crossed and uncrossed and then recrossed her legs in front of her under the table, the way that she rolled her fingers over each other with her hands clasped together, the way that Rufus leaned back and drummed his fingers across the top of the table as if he were bored but mildly amused by the conversation.

Watching them in this back and forth manner was maddening to Cloud, who couldn’t stop his imagination from vividly picturing Tifa working side by side with Rufus, his arm looping through hers or his hand coming to rest on her waist, much as Cloud’s had done the night before. Blended by the alcohol he was pouring into his system, Cloud felt himself set burning with vexation again, gripping his tumbler in his palm so tight it was a wonder he didn’t shatter the glass.

Close to an hour had passed when Rufus was finally paying for their meal, and they were both at their feet again. Cloud grit his teeth as he watched Rufus help Tifa into her coat, his fingers falling to her hands as she deftly worked the buttons up and then closed the loop on her belt in front of her. When they began to stride together in his direction, Rufus’ hand on the small of Tifa’s back, Cloud lowered his fedora again and turned away, his face aflame as they passed his right and exited The Office.

Waiting only a few beats, Cloud hastily swallowed back the rest of his drink and then plucked several bills out of his wallet, leaving them on the counter without waiting for the waiter to return. He pushed to his feet, long strides and a blend of desire and jealousy and maybe even a little bit of anxiousness to actually do his job sending him behind them.

He made it to the front doors just in time to catch Rufus’ driver shut the door to the limo out front before climbing inside and pulling the car into traffic. Cloud turned back, considering trying to swipe one of Tifa’s glasses from her table, but his curiosity over where she was going with Rufus outmatched his better senses and he found himself striding outside into the sunlight.

He was about to make his way down the block to his vehicle when he was stopped by a familiar grip on his forearm, its heat searing him all the way through the layers of his jacket and his suit, down to his flesh and bones. Startled, his eyes widened and he took a step back only to find Tifa Lockhart standing to his left, waiting for him beneath the bright blue awning of The Office.

“Detective,” she greeted him, her voice a thick, sultry purr.

The sound wrapped itself around his spine, sending shivers and shockwaves along every nerve encased within. Her sudden appearance caught him off guard, and Cloud shook his head out, locking his eyes with hers as he realized she had locked her hands behind her back again in that diffident manner that sent him alight every time.

“Ms. Lockhart,” he responded as cooly as he could, despite the sweat that trailed a line down his neck.

“Were you following me, Detective?” she asked, cutting straight to the chase, her painted red lips curving into a pouty smirk. She’d dropped one hand to her hip, and her head was tilted slightly to the side as if perplexed.

Cloud stepped out of the way of the entrance to the restaurant, sliding his hands into his pockets as he gazed down at Tifa. He felt the familiar stirrings of fiery warmth building inside of him, and none of it was aided by the way her fruity scents were kicked up by a sudden slow gust of wind that blew past. It stung her cheeks, bringing out the rosy hue beneath her skin, matching her eyes and her lips.

Cloud fought to gather his composure, and he swallowed slowly, pouring over his next words carefully.

“What makes you think I was following you, Tifa?” he asked her, taking a step closer to her, crowding her against the concrete siding of the building.

This was a dangerous game he was playing, Cloud knew. It was the middle of the afternoon and they were standing right out here in the midst of the public, where anyone could spot them. He was only inches away from her again, their body heat fusing into one, her breath suddenly hot on his collar and the bruises and scrapes she’d left on his skin just hours before. She seemed to realize this, because her coy smile was spreading into a knowing grin.

“I saw you tailing me all the way from the Shinra Tower, Detective,” Tifa admitted. “What’s the matter? Don’t you trust me?”

Cloud rubbed the back of his neck, fighting down the torrents of fire and fury that continued to ride against his bones. “What’s with you and Rufus Shinra?” he asked instead of answering. “I thought you didn’t work for him any more. I saw you with him at Seventh Heaven last night, too.”

“Jealous, Detective?”

Cloud didn’t know what it was about this woman that left him without possession of his most basic senses, but once again, he found himself acting on pure impulse and need and not on good sense. Her words set off a ticking time bomb inside of him, and he all but forgot about the case and why he’d been sent to follow her that afternoon, and he couldn’t stop himself from bringing a hand up to her cheek, running a long finger down to her chin.

“Maybe I just wanted to see you again,” he whispered, his voice far too low, and the back of his brain was questioning what the fuck was wrong with him. “And I don’t like that asshole having his hands all over you.”

“Already?” Tifa chirped, ignoring his comment about Rufus, bringing a hand up to the knot of his tie. He looked down to catch her fingers curl around it, her strawberry-red nail polishing shimmering under the sunlight. “It’s only been a few hours, Detective. Are you that insatiable?”

“Do you want to find out?” Cloud breathed.

“I have to get back to work, Detective,” Tifa replied, pulling on him by his tie until his nose was touching hers and their lips were a hair’s breadth apart. “But maybe I’d like to see you again tonight? When you’re off the clock?”

Cloud was staring into her eyes, feeling himself grow lost in them, the voice that was trying to bring him back to reality falling further and further away into a whirlpool to be washed out to sea somewhere and never heard from again. She licked her lips for emphasis, and Cloud felt the strain in his pants, realizing that it was highly unlikely that he would survive until later that night.

“Yeah,” he responded senselessly. “I’ll see you tonight.”

He started to back away, but Tifa gave him another little tug, enrapturing his attention once again. This time, she yanked hard, betraying the hidden power that lived in her, and Cloud was once again thinking about the firm, toned muscle definition of her body that lay beneath all of those soft, womanly peaks and valleys.

“I’ll be waiting for you, Detective,” she promised him, and then, her lips were hot all over his.

Cloud should have been embarrassed by the way that he moaned into her mouth as soon as they meshed, but he couldn’t stop himself, and soon, he had one hand around her waist and the other at her cheek, cupping it tightly in his grip as their tongues danced against one another, right there for the entire world to see.

Cloud was only pulled from the liquid venom of her grip as she sucked the life out of him when he needed to come up for air. Regretfully, he broke their kiss, though he let their eyes hold one another for a long moment, Tifa’s now glassy and filled with the same look of longing they’d held the night before when he’d dumped her on her dining room table.

* * *

[  ν ] -  εγλ \- 2021 | February 15th

7:24 PM 

Sector0 Public Security Precinct - Homicide Division

Cloud sat at his desk in the detective’s bureau once again, lighting a fresh cigarette after a frustrating afternoon of looking over the same evidence, reviewing the security footage from The Alexander and Seventh Heaven over and over again, and reading Wymer’s autopsy reports for the hundredth time and trying to piece together clues that would give them a more definitive lead on the Valentine’s Day Massacres which now had a plus one to claim. Cloud found himself finding _any_ excuse to _not_ place the blame on Tifa, looking for hidden reasons and alibis and motives that could suggest there might be another murderer out there with reason to kill Shinra’s male executives.

As it stood, though, despite the dozens of interviews that had been conducted and all of the evidence that had been looked over, Lieutenant Wallace hovering as they climbed through it all, they still remained with only Tifa Lockhart and Scarlet Price as their primary persons of interest in the case.

Zack hadn’t had any luck as of yet in tailing Scarlet and finding anything out about her or getting his hands on anything that could be used as evidence against her. As one of Shinra’s top executives, getting access to her, even as a Public Security official, was nearly impossible.

And Cloud, well, he had purposefully blown his chance to get any evidence from Tifa.

He found himself thinking of her again, of her invitation to her apartment again that night, and he was distracted from his work at hand, once again no longer thinking about the case and dead men that were coated in lipstick and diamonds but instead of her creamy, warm thighs and the way that her hair felt like heavy silk between his fingers whenever he ran them through it. He was imagining all of the ways that he was going to pull her apart when he got off that night when Zack appeared at his desk.

“You’re not gonna believe this shit,” he said in greeting, tearing Cloud out of his filthy daydreams. “I think the Captain is actually going to have a heart attack. We’ve got another dead body.”

Cloud finally sat up in interest. “What?” he stammered. “Already? What the fuck is going on?”

“This is getting really bad,” Zack answered. “Rufus is declaring a state of high alert for all upper-level Shinra staff. Tonight it was Professor Hojo, Shinra’s Director of Science and Research.”

Cloud relaxed a little. “Well, not such a huge loss,” he commented.

Zack tossed his head in frustration. “We need to get down to the Shinra Tower ASAP,” he barked. “Wallace is running around screaming at everybody. Cid has been on the phone with Heiddegar for the last hour, and I don’t want to be here when he comes out of his office. Do you?”

Cloud got to his feet. “Yeah, guess you’re right. Let’s go.”

“I’ll drive,” Zack said, reaching into his coat pocket for his keys.

But Cloud was quick to put a stop to this. “I’ll follow you,” he insisted. “I’m heading straight home after we check this scene, and I need to have my car.”

“But Strife - “

“I’ll meet you at the Shinra Tower,” Cloud cut him off, brushing past him, already resolving to work through this scene quickly, his thoughts still caught up in Tifa.

* * *

[  ν ] -  εγλ \- 2021 | February 15th

8:01 PM 

Shinra Tower - Sector0, Midgar

Cloud stopped for a decent cup of coffee at a nearby minimart, one that didn’t taste as stale and watered down as the stuff that they brewed in the precinct, and arrived at the Shinra Tower just after eight that evening. He spotted Zack’s cruiser parked sloppily in front, one tire riding the curb, and Cloud parked behind it, finishing the last few puffs of his current cigarette before he tossed it to the side and then got out of his vehicle.

Now that it was after dark, the Shinra Tower loomed with a different sort of threatening aura than it did in the daytime, when it seemed nothing more than a harmless, bustling skyscraper. Now, under the shine of the city’s light pollution and the bursts of mako that carried through the air from the nearby reactor, it appeared to be a menacing and ominous sentinel, its narrow, angular spires piercing the sky with a brutish violence, forcing the clouds to part above. 

Cloud sighed at this display, brushing his hands over his suit and his jacket before he made his way inside of the building, ignoring the activity that had generated out front, Shinra employees that had been evacuated from the building and were now herded beyond the barriers of yellow crime scene tape, Public Security officers trying to wave them away. The press was already on the scene, working to fight their way inside, shouting questions at him as he ducked his way inside the building.

As Cloud rode the elevators to the 64th floor, he found himself dropping his head back against the wall of the elevators, closing his eyes for a brief reprieve as he listened to each ding of the floors.

It had only been two days, but Cloud was now fully over this entire case. Six victims, all men, and all powerful Shinra leaders, were dead within less than forty-eight hours of each other. Cloud could hardly care how Professor Hojo wound up - he had a reputation for dubious scientific methods and was behind many of Shinra’s less fortunate experimentations with Mako energy - but nonetheless, the rise of targeted murders with so little evidence to work off of was alarming, and it was draining. Cloud could feel the higher that the elevator rose and the closer that he drew to the crime scene, that things were only going to get worse.

And it pained him to know that deep inside, all of this was complicated by his distracting attraction to Tifa Lockhart, who was too close to this case and who he desperately wanted to believe had nothing to do with it, despite the way his common sense was screaming the opposite at him.

He shook Tifa from his mind momentarily as the elevator deposited him on the 64th floor where the research labs and the science division were stationed. Cloud stepped into the hallway, finding it dim but illuminated by pale, blue fluorescent lighting. It was already stacked with Public Security MPs with rifles, all who moved at the ready when he emerged.

“Detective Strife,” one called to him at once, standing stiff at attention. “The crime scene is just down this corridor and to the left. Inside of Professor Hojo’s personal laboratory.”

Cloud resisted the urge to grimace at that, finding it extremely personal that someone might take Hojo down right in his own lab, but also disgusted by the prospect of having to enter it himself. The rumors of the kinds of research that Hojo conducted without very much oversight at all from Shinra’s self-proclaimed Institutional Review Board of Ethics was quite disconcerting, and Cloud really wasn’t interested in seeing any of the residuals of that work.

He simply nodded, making his way down the hall and finally into the lab, finding more officers and crime scene analysts milling about the huge, open space. It was sterile and bordered by steel and glass, illuminated with stark fluorescent lighting, the entire room bordered by mako tanks, most of which were empty but a few with unrecognizable lifeforms trapped within. Overlooking the entire lab, Cloud spotted an observation and control room, and immediately recognized the telltale splatter of blood across the glass.

“Up there,” an analyst said to him as he approached.

Cloud nodded, taking the stairs and emerging on the catwalk above. He navigated it to the control room, a well-sized space that was configured like an office, finding Zack there with his suit jacket off and his sleeves rolled up, crouched in front of a twisted body in a lab coat, an auburn-haired analyst named Jessie at his side.

“What’s going on?” Cloud asked, stepping carefully into the room, avoiding getting any blood on his leather wingtips.

Zack looked up at the sound of his voice. “There you are,” he stated. “Man, this is a mess. The Cap’ is _pissed_.”

Cloud just shrugged, keeping his hands in his pockets as he stared down at Hojo’s twisted form on the metal flooring of the control room. His long, greasy ponytail was flung to one side, his neck turned at an awkward angle where he had landed face down on the grating. His mouth was wide open and his spectacles had been knocked off of his face and flown askew, leaving him to stare into the void with cold, lifeless black eyes.

“I mean,” Cloud began in response, “Is anyone really going to miss him?”

Jessie, who was still crouched on the ground, blue gloves on her hands as she inspected the body, let out an almost humorless laugh. Zack simply shook his head.

“He’s not the most well-liked guy, for sure, but now is not the time for jokes,” Zack responded. “Listen, this is bad, really, really bad. The only executives still alive are Rufus, Heiddegar, Scarlet, and Palmer. If another one of them dies, it could spell disaster for the entire Shinra Company.”

Taking another look around Hojo’s lab through the glass of the observation deck, Cloud began to wonder whether or not that would actually be such a bad thing.

He shook away that thought and glanced down at Hojo’s stiff body again, noticing the distinct tears in his lab coat, all of them leaked through with blood.

“This looks different,” Cloud commented, now also crouching down to get a better look.

“That’s because it is,” Zack rejoined, crossing his arms over his chest. “Hojo wasn’t shot like the others. He was _stabbed_. Or maybe slashed is a better word. Looks like he was gutted with some type of blade, straight through to the heart, also from behind. Coroner hasn’t taken a look yet, but just from what I’ve seen, it seems pretty violent. As you can see, he bled out badly, and the splatter is everywhere.

“They left a mess,” Cloud conceded. “Prints?” 

“They’ve dusted,” Jessie spoke for the first time. “We’ll know more in a few hours.”

“Calling cards?” Cloud asked Zack, getting back up to his feet.

“The same,” Zack answered, pointing to Hojo’s collar. “Earring and lipstick.”

“Look at this,” Jessie suddenly interjected, holding up a pair of tweezers.

Cloud squinted, but he couldn’t see anything. “What is it?” he asked her.

She got to her feet, then approached him and Zack, holding it up under the light. “It’s a strand of hair.”

Cloud tilted his head, straining to see beneath the harsh lighting overhead. As his eyes began to focus, he noticed the distinct black thread of a long, dark strand of hair. Jessie carefully lowered it into a clear plastic evidence bag.

Cloud scratched his head. “So?” he asked. “Hojo has dark hair, Jessie. What are we looking for here?”

Jessie huffed out a self-satisfied laugh. “This is why you guys need me. I’ll have to take it back to the lab to be sure, but I can almost say with one hundred percent positivity that this strand did not fall off of Professor Hojo’s head. It’s distinctly a dark shade of brown, nearly off-black, while Hojo’s hair is jet-black. And the texture is different. It’s much thicker.”

“How can you tell all that just by looking?” Zack asked, but Cloud’s eyes were widening, the back of his head beginning to pulse with a dull ache.

“I have a knack with this sort of thing,” Jessie bragged. “I’ll run it through the lab when I get back downtown and let you know what I find.”

“You do that,” Zack responded. “Come on, Strife. There’s nothing else for us to do here, and the Captain wants to huddle with us before we call it quits for the night.”

But the entire time he made his way back to the elevators and down the ground floor with Zack at his side, Cloud’s heart was pounding in his ears, that long strand of dark hair burned permanently to the front of his mind.

They arrived in the lobby, and Cloud was surprised to find Captain Highwind and Lieutenant Wallace joined not only by Chief Joseph Heiddegar, but the President himself, Rufus Shinra. The four of them stood in the center of the main lobby, surrounded by Shinra’s glittering opulence on display and its dark graphite walls and violet lighting and glass windows. Rufus’s beastly, mako-enhanced hound, Darkstar, was now at his side, snarling and drooling onto the marble floors as it heeled next to him.

The sight of Rufus only served to further sour Cloud’s mood. It was now the second time he was seeing him that day, after watching him taking lunch with Tifa and standing too close to her, his hand on her back and his arm through hers. The prospect of having to interact with this asshole was almost too much to handle.

But Cid was waving them over, the look on his face harried, a cigarette between his lips and his eyes bloodshot. At his side, Barret Wallace appeared on the verge of tearing somebody’s head off.

“C’mon,” Zack murmured unhappily at his side.

They approached cautiously, and as soon as they joined the older men, Rufus and Heiddegar both turned their attention to him and Zack. Cloud had met and spoken with Public Security Chief Joseph Heiddeger on more than one occasion, but he could never really get a good read on Cid’s boss. But this would be his first time ever interacting with Rufus Shinra.

“Mr. President, Chief,” Cid began, plucking his cigarette from his lips. Cloud realized he had never heard the Captain’s voice sound so haggard and shorn, and he wondered when was the last time he had gotten any sleep. Cloud almost felt sorry for him.

Almost.

“Detectives Strife and Fair, Homicide,” Cid went on in introduction. “They’ve been assigned to this massacre case. They’ve got a great track record with some of the damndest murders this city has seen in the last five years. I’m confident they’ll get to the bottom of all of this before another soul is lost.”

“Hmph,” Heiddegar instantly huffed, puffing out his thick block of a chest beneath his deep green military dress. “Detective Strife? Isn’t he the one who cost us the Genesis case last year?”

Cloud instantly felt the steam rise between his ears, his blood boiling. “Sir, that was - “

“Genesis is the biggest pain in my entire ass,” Heiddegar went on, ignoring him. “Ifrit, burn me alive if I have to hear another recitation of LOVELESS from the man before I die.”

He broke into a wild guffaw, to which Cid nervously joined in, before Rufus cut in with a rough clearing of his throat.

“Stop that stupid horse laugh.”

Heidegger instantly piped down, growling low in his throat at the public admonishment, but Rufus was stepping forward toward Cloud and Zack, the corner of his lips turning up into a smirk that seemed dangerous. It gave Cloud a chill, and he almost found himself taking a step back.

“Detectives,” Rufus began, his voice as smooth as ice, “I’ll have you know that from the perspective of the president of this company, nothing in its operations currently takes more priority than the solving of this case and immediate justice for the victims we have lost. My brother is dead, and some of my most talented employees have been sacrificed. My entire company is living in fear. The Shinra Company cannot expect to remain functional and profitable if we are operating under the constant suspicion that someone may murder us where we stand.”

“Understood, Mr. President,” Zack stated unnecessarily, grating on Cloud’s already limited nerves.

“Understand _this_ ,” Rufus added, stepping closer, Darkstar emitting a growl as if cosigning his words. “As law enforcement agents of Public Security, I _own_ you. And as such, I expect results. There is not much time left, gentlemen.”

Cloud stared at him, unable to keep his eyes from narrowing in distaste, but Rufus simply let his simper waver, snapping his fingers at the hound before he turned away wordlessly and made his way out of the Tower. He was immediately flanked by Elena and another surviving female Turk with red hair, a pair of MPs escorting him to a helicopter outside.

Heidegger whirled around on Cid the instant he was gone. “You have another day to get this under control, Highwind!” he roared. “That man is a ticking time bomb, and there aren’t many left of us to target. If one more person in this company turns up dead, I swear to the bloody son of Kjata - “

“Yeah, yeah,” Cid grubbed, now suddenly sounding angry. “I heard ya, hold your chocobos and pull them back up to the stable. We got one more day. Got it. We’ll get to the bottom of this before then.”

Heidegger opened his mouth as if he wanted to say something else, but instead, he leveled appraising looks at all four of them, then turned and made his way out of the Shinra tower in the wake of the President’s departure.

“I hate each and every one of these motherfuckers,” Barret complained as soon as he was gone.

For once, Cloud found himself agreeing with the Lieutenant, watching through the glass as Rufus’ helicopter ascended into the air, feeling it pull some of the hot rage and envy that lived inside of him with it.

“Alright, listen here,” Cid began, blowing another plume heavenward. “It’s late, and you’ve all been going at it all night. We’re running on fumes. Go home, get some sleep, and let’s reconvene at the station at seven AM sharp. By then, all the goddamn results should be back from Forensics, so we should have new data to work off of. Might be enough for us to pin either Lockhart or Price, or give us a new lead. And hopefully, nobody else buys the farm tonight while we’re sleeping.”

“Sounds good to me,” Wallace responded. “I’ve been at it for almost thirty-six hours straight. Be nice to see Marlene for a few.”

“My wife has already called me six times today,” Zack added, shaking his head. “Between her and the twins, I don’t think I’m going to be getting much sleep tonight at all.” He looked over at Cloud, offering him a wink.

“Must be nice being a bachelor, eh? Can sleep or do whatever the hell you want.”

“Yeah,” Cloud agreed, rubbing the back of his neck, already knowing he wasn’t going to be spending the night alone tonight.

* * *

[  ν ] -  εγλ \- 2021 | February 15th

11:47 PM 

Alexander Building - Sector0, Midgar - Apt 60D

It was close to midnight when Cloud found himself on the other side of Tifa’s apartment door inside the Alexander building, a brown paper bag with a bottle of imported Nibelheim bourbon inside. He paused at the door, rethinking over and over again what he was about to do, cursing himself for becoming so hopelessly wrapped up in Tifa Lockhart that he was throwing all caution and judgment to the wind and relenting to his worst impulses. As he rested his palm against her door, he thought over the case again, considering the facts where he stood, the six dead men and Tifa’s red lipstick and the strange lock of dark brown hair that Jessie had found on Hojo’s lab coat. 

He thought about Tifa’s unspoken relationship with Rufus Shinra, a relationship she insisted had ceased to exist when she quit working for him in Junon, but seemed to persist, suggested by the way they frequently spoke to one another and even took lunch with each other. It bothered him so badly that it had taken every bit of his self control to not relent to the urge to reach out for the President’s neck earlier that night, to stop himself from warning him to never put his hands on Tifa Lockhart again if he wanted to live to see another day.

It was silly, really. He’d had sex with Tifa once, and it was probably the stupidest thing he’d ever done in his life. He was letting himself lose control, and the more he spoke to her and learned about her, the more he spent time around her, the more he realized he was addicted, that he couldn’t get enough of her. It scared him to realize that he was maybe falling for her, and sweet Shiva, he really hoped she wasn’t behind those murders.

Holding on to that shred of hope, he knocked on her door.

It didn’t take long for her to appear. She pulled the door open, and Cloud’s eyes widened at the sight of her. Once again, she was dressed in black, just as she had been that afternoon, only this time she was wearing a sheer negligee over black lace panties and nothing else, her breasts bare under the diaphanous fabric. Her hair was loose and full around her shoulders, kissing their sides, slightly tousled as if she had just been lying in bed. She was still wearing faint wisps of her makeup around her eyes, and her full lips were still blood-red.

Cloud was caught in stasis for a moment at the sight of her, and he had to internally rewire his brain to gain control of himself. He licked his lips slowly, but then Tifa was smiling at him, leaning against the doorframe.

“Detective,” she greeted him, her voice thick with honey and the remnants of sleep. “I’d almost thought you’d forgotten about me. I had just gone to bed.”

“How could I?” Cloud responded, trying to play it cool. “Just got off the job. It’s been a rough night. Can I come in?”

She relaxed her smile, stepping out of the way to let him in. As soon as she latched the door closed, she was helping to ease him out of his jacket, hanging it up on the coat rack off to the side.

“What have you got there?” she asked, pointing to the paper bag, though Cloud didn’t miss the way that her eyes swept over his body, hovering over his torso and his arms before those scarlet pools dipped lower.

“Some Hagur’s Reserve,” he responded. “Thought you might appreciate it.”

“Nibel bourbon?” Tifa said, her eyebrows lifting with slight surprise as he handed her the bag and she pulled the bottle from it to take a look. “Aren’t you thoughtful?”

He shrugged, watching her as her eyes skimmed over the bottle and began to soften. She looked up at him then, and her smile was not quite as flirtatious, but was a little more genuine. 

“Come on, let me get you a drink.”

After the day he’d had, Cloud couldn’t think of a better idea, following Tifa into her kitchen, watching her powerful legs with every step she took. She was barefoot again, and Cloud found himself staring at her toes, the sudden urge to press his lips to each and every one of them flooding him. 

He pushed it aside, taking a seat at Tifa’s kitchen island when she gestured to it. Once again, her kitchen appeared completely pristine and betrayed little hint of use. As a working woman with a relatively high profile position, Cloud wondered how she kept up with maintaining such an elaborate apartment.

She’d left the overhead light off and was relying on the light above the stove to provide a warm glow to the kitchen, and Cloud was grateful for it, because his eyes were burning from lack of sleep, the images of the dead from the day still stamped across the back of his retinas. He tried to shove them away, tried to separate business from pleasure for a little while, no matter how foolish he knew it to be, watching Tifa’s long torso stretch as she reached into a cabinet for two tumblers. He didn’t tear his eyes away when she faced him again, instead letting their gazes meet as she came to sit beside him, placing the tumblers on the table and unscrewing the cap from the bottle.

“Were you admiring, Detective Strife?” Tifa teased, pouring a healthy amount into each glass.

“Only trying to decide which way I want to take you apart tonight first,” he responded evenly, unsure of where this brute flirtation was coming from.

Tifa laughed richly at his suggestive response, and she clearly appreciated it, because to his surprise, she was rising from the stool again and instead crawling over his legs and centering herself in his lap. He blinked at the sudden warmth, the rush of her warm vanilla and jasmine scent intoxicating him, one arm coming around his neck to anchor her body to his while her other hand freely lifted her glass, clinking it against his before she brought it to her lips.

“Mmm,” she hummed a moment after she’d swallowed it down. “This is good stuff. I don’t think I’ve had it since I left the village.”

“I’m glad you like it.”

She smiled, and Cloud sipped his drink too, feeling himself burn up when she began to run her fingers through his hair, long, upward strokes against the back of his head, her nails grazing his scalp. The sensation was somehow soothing and relaxing, draining the tension of the day away almost as much as the booze was.

“I heard about Director Lazard and Professor Hojo,” Tifa said after a moment, looking down into her drink. Cloud tipped his head to one side, watching her face and trying to get a good read on her expression, looking for information to store. “Lazard was… a good man. He was nothing like Rufus. He... He actually cared about people. Hojo, well... I can’t say anyone is going to miss him.”

Cloud ignored the comment about Hojo, sipping his drink again and nearly draining it, enjoying the feeling of alcohol coursing through his veins. He set it down and wrapped both palms around Tifa’s waist.

“Tell me, Tifa,” he began again, “What’s really between you and Rufus?”

She looked up at him again, her eyes narrowing slightly.

“You really don’t trust me, do you, Cloud?”

Cloud felt his heart begin to pound, and it wasn’t for the usual electrifying reasons that his chest swelled whenever he was around Tifa. This time, it was echoing with the drumbeat of anxiety, and he felt his entire torso tighten when Tifa pulled her hand away from his hair and slid off of his lap, leaning against the counter with both hands around her glass.

“Cigarette,” she stated, not a question.

Finding himself unable to respond to her last statement, Cloud reached into his vest for his cigarette case, slapping it open and plucking one out. He held it up to Tifa’s lips, lighting it for her before she turned away again, blowing smoke into the air beyond.

The air was heavy with a thick silence then, and the only thing Cloud knew to do at the moment was drink through it. When his tumbler was suddenly empty, he reached for the bottle and refilled it.

Tifa finally turned back to him, watching as he poured and then sipped. She sighed, leaning back on one elbow, inhaling another puff before she blew it out again.

“Rufus and I worked together closely in Junon,” she explained, and Cloud looked up at her, their eyes meeting at the serious tone in her voice. “He… was always interested in me. A lot of men are, believe it or not. It was difficult to work for him, but it was a great career opportunity, and I needed the experience. So I put up with him for as long as I could. When he was promoted, though, he refused to bring me along unless I finally accepted his advances and would at least date him. I refused, so he let me go. Luckily, I got picked up by the contracts department. He still pursues me from time to time, and I still have to work with him at times, so I try to be gracious.”

Cloud’s mind spun and wove through this information. It all seemed a little strange. Cloud knew as well as anyone else that Rufus was somewhat of a prick, but he was certainly not facing any shortage of women. He was good-looking, wealthy, successful, and secure. Any woman would be more than happy to have him; for many, it would be a dream come true.

Cloud wondered what made a beautiful woman like Tifa’s standards so different that she would rather go for a surly, borderline alcoholic detective who was often on the verge of suspension from his job, or worse, instead.

“Why did you refuse?” he couldn’t stop himself from asking.

A hint of Tifa’s smile returned, smoke escaping her lips as they gapped. “He’s not my type.”

Cloud only scoffed at this. “Is that right? He’s blonde-haired and blue-eyed, Ms. Lockhart. Something about your story isn’t adding up.”

Tifa laughed again, and it melted Cloud inside to see her light up again, to see her cheeks flush with happiness. He watched her put the cigarette out in the ashtray, and then she was positioning herself between his legs, returning her warmth and her honey to him as she pulled on his tie and dragged him in close to her.

“It’s a lot more than just looks, Detective,” she whispered.

Cloud started to ask her to elaborate, but he was forced to swallow his words when her lips crushed against his. He silenced himself, letting himself fall victim to the assaulting sensations of her mouth, warm and wet and tasting of whiskey and nicotine and the remnants of something sweet on her tongue.

It reawakened the bloodthirstiness that had been living inside of him since he’d kissed her on the sidewalk that afternoon, and now, once again inside of the confines of her overindulgent apartment, he felt secure to unleash the raging passion that he had been building and reserving for her and her alone all day. His thoughts about the case were abandoned until he felt her running her hands under his blazer, her fingers smoothing over his shoulder holster, his instincts kicking into gear when she came a little too close to his Glock. He seized her wrist, stopping her and pulling his lips from hers.

“What’s wrong?” she asked him, her words all breath, raspy from their kissing. “Do you think I’d even know what to do with that thing if I even managed to get my hands on it?”

Cloud didn’t know why her words were making him so much hotter, why they were suddenly driving him up a wall, but he found himself abandoning his drink, pinning her wrist to her side while his other hand snaked around the back of her body, instantly finding her plump rear and giving it a good squeeze.

“I can’t be too careful,” he replied.

She laughed again. “You still don’t trust me.”

Cloud only growled, his brain brimming with fire, his erection uncomfortable against the wool of his pants. Tifa’s free hand was trying to help him out of his blazer, and Cloud finally relented, releasing her wrist so that he could pull his arms free. He dumped it on the table then, then shrugged out of his holsters and left the whole mess, along with the pistol, on the table next to his sport coat.

Now suddenly back in his lap, Tifa’s hands were all over his arms and chest and shoulders, feeling and testing every muscle beneath his shirt and vest. His skin and sinew twitched beneath her touch, and Cloud was now squeezing her waist with one hand and the back of her neck with the other, leaning in to kiss her as she began to undo the buttons of his vest with her swift and nimble fingers.

“I like,” she whispered between kisses, their tongues intertwining and then breaking away, “This color on you.”

Cloud’s brain only barely registered what she was talking about, but he realized she was referring to his suit. He couldn’t help but smile against her lips at the compliment, and when she had managed his vest open and was running her hand along his chest eagerly, working her fingers next on his dress shirt, his tie tossed over one shoulder, Cloud got to his feet, lifting Tifa and placing her on the kitchen island.

He positioned himself right between her legs, edging her thighs open. The heat was racing through him, but he was working more methodically than he had the night before, keeping the hot rage of his feelings and emotions somewhat in check. He kept them caged beneath the inferno, his focus solely on her pleasure and winding her down to pieces until she was submitting to him again and he knew that there was no way she would ever, ever go for another man, not Rufus Shinra and not anyone else.

He wasn’t sure why he was having these thoughts, but they were guiding his every action, even as a voice in the back of his head pointed his attention in the direction of her empty whiskey tumbler on the counter, faintly noting that it was covered in her fingerprints.

He pushed that thought aside and focused on the tender stretch of her throat, his mouth hot and breath hot all over her skin as he began to kiss her again. His hands gripped her body tightly, fingers pressing into silk and finding skin, all of her warmth coming alive as his hands traveled the smooth highways of her body. He gripped and squeezed her, but Tifa only purred back, and Cloud leaned in, realizing he could never take enough or as much as he wanted from Tifa Lockhart.

He found himself kissing her again, her arms around his neck and her legs locking around his waist as she drew him in near. This time, though, her body was demanding, pressing him into the countertop, her lips wet and messy and hot, leaving Cloud gasping for breath.

“Let’s go to bed,” she was soon panting, picking up both his glass and the bottle of Nibel whiskey, sliding out of his arms and back to her feet. “I miss you.”

She took the glass and the bottle with her, sauntering away into her bedroom with the expectation that Cloud would follow her. And he did, but not before some inkling of his better sense kicked in, and he made the decision to wrap her empty whiskey tumbler in a paper napkin before he dropped it into his jacket’s pocket where it hung on the coat rack for later analysis.

Leaving it there and feeling like he was somehow in the midst of a massive betrayal, he followed Tifa to her bedroom where she was now disrobing. When he caught up with her, she had tossed away the sheer outer shell of her negligee, standing there in only her lacey black camisole and underwear.

As soon as her eyes met his, she was crossing the room to him. Her mouth was all over his again, her hands smoothing over his chest, pushing away his vest as she shoved him onto the bed. Cloud found himself relenting under her pressure, nipping back at her, his hands squeezing the softness of her hips beneath his palms before he growled with an aggression that was new and unexpected.

Feeling the heat build, he flipped her over until she lay beneath him, her chest rising and falling and her heart pounding like the hooves of a racehorse, Cloud realizing he could hear and feel all of it. It made him feel reckless inside, setting loose the wild hunger and lust that resided inside of him and rode against his nerves, and he did everything in his power to calm the ache and settle the wild hunger inside of him.

Ultimately, though, her lips on his were too wild to tame, and the longer that Tifa kissed him, the more Cloud found himself falling in love with her. He was soon tearing at her camisole, seeking to eliminate the remaining thin barriers that existed between them, the silk material soon slipping away to pool at her sides and the bedroom floor. Tifa mewled under him when her body was again almost completely exposed, and Cloud pulled away only long enough to catch a glimpse of her pretty pink nipples hardening as his breath chased them.

The cravenness inside of him became inconsolable then, because Cloud was pushing her thighs apart, Tifa arching against the bed, her legs spread. Finding himself at a loss, Cloud snaked his hands along the smoothness of her thighs, finding the hem of her panties and ripping them clean down and off of her legs.

He didn’t know why, but as he looked down into her eyes, he found himself at a crossroads. Part of him was desperate to lean into the situation he found himself entangled in, to let go and never look back, to let Tifa have her way with him however she wanted.

Another part of him begged him to consider her to be the suspect she was and to reevaluate his entire relationship with her before he got himself or someone else killed.

He pushed these thoughts to the side, though, letting himself fall victim completely to Tifa and her wiles. Her hands were too soft and her lips too wet, and soon she was sliding away from him, pressing a finger to his lips in an effort to shush him.

Loosening his tie as he sat back, his vest and shirt and disheveled, Cloud did his best to remain respectful as Tifa crept towards him. But as soon as the dim yellow lighting hit his eyes and Tifa turned to him with her lips curved up in a speculative pout, Cloud finally lost all control.

He quickly shifted and shoved her against the bed, falling on top of her so that he could drench her lips and throat and upper body with kisses. She tried to reciprocate, but she found it difficult to keep up, arching her back and crying louder and higher the lower that his mouth moved and the more loving his lips became.

He was lost in the heady scents of her arousal and her soap, unable to stop himself from breathing hot against the fleshy, hot space between her thighs. As soon as she felt his breath, she lifted and sat up, tearing now at his hair, a moan escaping her lips.

“Cloud, please…”

He didn’t waste any time in obliging her subtle begging, his lips traveling lower until his hands were digging harshly into her skin and leaving her thrashing all over the bed, her fingers curling into the sheets. He pressed her spine down against the mattress, one hand gripping hers above her head while the other smoothed over the tight expanse of her body, toying with a stiff nipple and squeezing the full weight of a breast in his palm.

Tifa had begun to writhe, her body winding under his control, setting all of the wildfires loose inside of him again. Cloud tried to control himself, but the hunger was too desperate and pleading, and he soon had her right leg slung over his shoulder, his index and middle fingers buried inside of her as his thumb brushed over her clit.

“How do you want it tonight?” he asked her, thumb stroking her listlessly, her hips rolling and her back arching.

“Let me ride you,” Tifa huffed behind a hum of pleasure. “Let me show you that you can trust me.”

Her words were somehow poison and the antidote at once, and Cloud obliged her by rubbing the tip of her clit with the pad of his thumb just a little more, his fingers still deep inside of her, trying to pull her toward the deepest, darkest climax he could inspire. But as soon as she was on the edge, panting and mewling and clawing at his shirt and vest, he relented, slowly pulling away and gathering her into his arms.

“Okay,” he conceded, pressing his lips to hers.

He lowered her gently, but Tifa was instantly on the move, rising to her knees on the bed to help him finish disrobing, pulling away his vest and shirt and belt, lowering his pants until she was forcing him into a heap on the bed.

They were kissing again, long and sweet, and it wasn’t long before Tifa forced him onto his back so that she could center herself above him. Now fully naked, she was leaking over him, her center warm and sweet as it connected with his, and all Cloud could think about was tearing her insides apart with his cock.

She didn’t give him the opportunity, though. Cloud’s eyes widened as he watched her lean over the side of the bed, grasping for his pants where they had fallen on the floor. His breath caught when she found his belt, lifting his pair of handcuffs from them and dangling them in front of his eyes.

“Tifa…” he warned.

But it was useless, and _he_ was useless, powerless to stop her when she laughed and grabbed both of his wrists and carefully but coyly chained them to the headboard above.

Cloud could have easily overpowered her. He could have easily stopped her if he _wanted_ to. But the dark truth was that he didn’t _want_ to stop her, that suddenly living under the radical, unrelenting power of Tifa Lockhart, he was more thrilled and alive than he could ever remember being in his life.

“Shh,” she hushed him when he started to protest again, burying his hardness deep inside of her and eliciting another dark moan from his throat as she began to ride him mercilessly.

Cloud closed his eyes, feeling the sensations wash over him as the sound of Tifa’s moans and cries flooded his senses. Her palms were flat on his chest, and she was working herself into a frenzy above him, her head tossed back as she wailed out to the sky. 

Cloud only winced, tossing his head across the pillow, hearing the blurred but distinct sound of the headboard slam into the wall as she rode him into oblivion, her mouth soon hot over his, trailing liquid fire across his neck and jaw. He stiffened and seized every time she clenched her walls on him and slid up and down, and he heard the low, guttural growl that poured from his throat when she bounced on top of him, her eyes locked with his as she reached behind her and began to stroke his underside with the barest caress of her fingers as she climbed up and down his length mercilessly.

It wasn’t long before Cloud was wincing and coming inside of her, completely unable to control his own desire or manage her reciprocal pleasure with his wrists bound. It made him hot and angry inside, left him feeling anxious and unfulfilled, but there was no stopping the way that he unraveled inside of her, her name on his lips and his on hers as she fell apart right alongside him and collapsed onto his chest.

She mewled and whined, dropping her forehead to his collarbone, her chest heaving as she climaxed all over him, leaking and wet and hot. She shivered and shook, cradling his body in her grip, whimpering his name over and over again on repeat.

“Tifa?” he finally called to her after long moments passed. Cloud strained his wrists against his restraints, but Tifa only wrapped her arms around his shoulders, her thighs locking him between them, his spend leaking out of her wet center and all over his cock again.

“Shhh,” she hushed him again. “Please… just let me have this moment.”

Cloud didn’t know what to say to that. He tried to adjust to the feel of her soft body curling against his, but with his wrists bound, he was stuck and at a loss. He struggled, pulling against the bindings of his cuffs, but it was fruitless, and then, Tifa was kissing him again.

“Tifa, please… let me - “

She shushed him again, curving her body close to his, pulling the comforter up around them both.

“Mmm,” she hummed, her palm already snaking down to his soft cock, stirring it to life again with the gentle power that lived in the flames behind her fists. “You’re good at this.”

But Cloud could only glance at her bedside table, feeling her bring his body to life again with new hot stabs of pain and desire, watching his PHS light up, Zack’s name flashing across the display.

Tifa caught his distraction, and she laughed, reaching over to knock the phone out of sight with a flick of her wrist before she disappeared beneath the sheets, her mouth now wrapped hot around his cock, Cloud’s vision and his best senses whiting out.

_Fuck it._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Follow me on twitter @nitezintodreamz


	4. Chapter Four - Game of Death

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And this is the conclusion of this weird experiment I've conducted.  
>    
> I hope you enjoy. Please ignore any obvious forensic incongruencies, I watch a lot of police procedurals but I am by no means an expert.
> 
> Thank you everyone for your love. Your comments and nudges here and on Twitter and discord have given me new life.
> 
> Thanks to my love Spaceodementia for beta'ing.

Valentine’s Day Massacre

* * *

**Part Four - Game of Death**

[ ν ] - εγλ - 2021 | February 16th

7:24 AM 

Alexander Building - Sector0, Midgar - Apt 60D

For the second morning in as many days, Cloud Strife found himself waking up in Tifa Lockhart’s bed.

He opened bright blue eyes to find the room hazy and dim, Tifa’s bed curtained by the overhead netting that closed them in. Cloud could hear the distinct titter of rain on her windows beyond, and blinking as his awareness returned to him, he sat up slightly to see beyond the translucent fabric shielding her bed that the sky was cloudy and dark.

Another rainy winter day in Midgar. Cloud sighed slightly and then winced, feeling the soreness in all of his muscles from his night of rough passion with Tifa. Glancing down at himself, he noticed the bright red scratches and dark purple bruises in the flesh of his torso and thighs, open wounds from her nails and searing love bites from her teeth. His wrists were sore from being cuffed to her bedpost for long hours through the night, and although she had reluctantly unchained them before they’d finally fallen asleep, he could see the bright chafe marks that had been burned in fine red streaks there. He grit the lines of his teeth against each other, rolling his shoulders as he tried to sit up fully, shifting across Tifa’s soft, silky bed sheets and fluffy, overstuffed pillows.

The movement of his body caused her to roll at his side, and he stiffened when she moaned imperceptibly in her sleep. Her hair spilled across one pale shoulder, leaving the skin there exposed, and it was then that Cloud realized he had left just as many violent, fervent marks into her own flesh as she had into his.

He started to shake his head, piecing together the events of the last couple of days and how he had managed to find himself in the tangle of these white sheets for the last two nights, every nerve in his body achy with desire for Tifa Lockhart. Men were dying left and right in this city, dropping dead at every turn, their bodies mangled and blown open with the calling card of a vengeful and deranged woman left behind. 

And all of them were powerful men, men who helped lead the most powerful corporate and political entity on the face of the planet.

He glanced down at Tifa again. She was beginning to stir, turning slightly within her cocoon of the sheets. She had become the number one suspect in these brutal killings, and the more evidence was unleashed and motives were considered, the more it seemed likely that she was at least connected to this entire barbarous affair. They had already uncovered at least a handful of motives for her involvement - most prominently the death of her father, as well as her own career ambitions. And then there was the somewhat circumstantial physical evidence that still hovered, leaving them on the brink of making a break in this case and bringing her in handcuffed if it got any more concrete.

So why was he ignoring all of this, sleeping with her every night, putting his own life and livelihood at risk?

Cloud wanted to believe that the woman who was roping him in with her softness and her dark sensuality and the coyness of her sweet, enticing smiles was innocent of such violence. He wanted to believe that he wasn’t nearly crazy or delusional enough to fall so haplessly for someone so manipulative and cruel, that this entire situation was embroiled in massive misunderstandings, that there would be a way out of all of it.

Deep in the farthest recesses of his mind, though, he knew somehow that that wasn’t the case.

Cloud resisted the urge to whine at his own stupidity, shaking his head as he dragged his fingers through his hair. He pulled away to look down at his hand, clenching it and rolling his fingers, exhaling carefully and considering his next move for the day when Tifa was suddenly shifting at his side.

“Good morning,” she greeted him sleepily around a yawn.

Cloud’s thoughts all fizzled away and died somewhere, now distracted by the sight of her pretty, sleep-laden face as she peered up at him, leaning forward on one elbow. Her eyes were glassy and low-lidded, her full lips pink and bare of her usual lipstick, kissed clean off of her the night before by his own. She was offering him a toying smile, and every muscle in his abdomen tightened and flexed when she dropped her hand to it, lightly brushing her fingertips over the scrapes her nails had left there the night before in a silent acknowledgment.

“Morning,” he responded, his voice thick, their eyes meeting, his heart picking up pace as he realized she was reeling him in again.

“It’s raining,” she said next, and she curled closer to him, laying her head on his chest, her fingers still dancing over his skin. Her hair was cool and thick, and Cloud couldn’t stop himself from dropping his fingers into her strands, gently working through the tangles and knots that had accumulated there during their lovemaking that lasted long into the night before. She hummed her approval as he undid them, her hair falling in ebony slats across her back. “Perfect to spend in bed all day, don’t you think?”

“I wish,” Cloud answered, groaning slightly when she climbed over him as he began to protest. “But I have to get back to work.”

“Aw,” she whined, now straddling him and pulling the sheets around them. He could feel the heat and the slickness between her thighs as she settled over him, her desire made clear as her hands bracketed his shoulders and his cock sprang back to life. She was peering down at him now, her red eyes as bright as cherries with mischief, that heavy midnight hair closing in around him like the walls of death. “At least stay for a little while longer, Detective.”

Cloud found himself huffing out a sigh as she settled in close to him and rolled her hips, his own longing beginning to creep toward the surface and becoming uncontainable, her soft words unwinding him inside. Grateful that his arms were this time free, he looped them around her shoulders, holding her back and pinning her close to his chest.

“Just a little while longer, Ms. Lockhart,” he breathed, finding himself loving this game that they were falling into. 

She smiled down at him in response, then leaned in to capture his lips in a kiss. She curved her neck to one side, slotting her mouth over his, her tongue dipping gently forward to find his. It was hot and wet, soft but firm at the same time, tenderly exploring the inner rim of his lips before plunging forward to enter the cavity of his mouth. The tentativeness of her affections had him responding wildly, and without being able to control himself, Cloud flipped her over until she was in the center of the bed beneath him, looking up at him with her ruby eyes wide and flickering, her breasts rising and falling slowly with anticipation.

He stared down at her, letting his eyes drift lower to the narrow space between them, noting again her svelte, feminine form that was all curves and softness but undergirded by a toned, muscular strength that he still didn’t understand. He didn’t care, though, finding her enchanting and magnificent, and he dipped down to kiss her once more, this time rough and feverishly before he pulled back and sat back on his knees.

Cloud grabbed both of Tifa’s calves in hand, coarsely dragging her closer to him until her bottom was square on the tops of his thighs and she was spread open for him, her pussy pink and glistening even in the dim cloudiness of her room. She pulled her legs back and arched, angling even closer to him, a movement that was both sultry and encouraging as her feet planted against his hips. Cloud slid his hands up the warmth of the outside of her thighs, watching with his insides aglow as her mouth gaped open, her pouty bottom lip wet and quivering. Her body shivered when he reached her waist, rubbing over those too-well-defined abdominal muscles before he leaned forward to access her breasts.

Tifa closed her eyes and let her head loll to one side while Cloud took advantage of her blissful distraction to palm her heavy mounds, yielding like dough beneath his grip. Her nipples, pale pink and blood-kissed, were stiff already from both the coolness in the air and the slow caress of his hands, and when she exhaled a breathy sigh, arching her back again into his hold, he ghosted his thumbs in a languid brush over each nipple, watching with fire behind his eyes when she bit into her bottom lip and smiled.

As it stood, everything was entirely too tender between them, and Cloud didn’t know where these loving touches were originating from. Most of his passions with this bizarre woman had been soul-consuming and rough. He had no qualms about tearing into her or letting her flay away his flesh; something about just the sheer proximity of her scent to him was enough to have him let loose his wildest, darkest demons.

Despite that, though, he found himself compelled to fall into a strange and uncharacteristic need to care and comfort, a feeling he’d never experienced with any other woman. He’d fallen into this trap once the previous night, when he found himself on top of her in the dead of night, rolling his hips slowly into hers, finding a part of her deep inside that turned her wild, desirous screams into throaty, passion-filled moans, her legs wrapped around him tight and crossed at the ankles as she begged and pleaded with him.

He didn’t know what it was. Maybe it was the way that she laid bare a little bit more of her heart every time they met or spent any time together. Maybe it was the way that she gently encouraged him to do the same, under the cover of darkness, a hard-strapped and bitter detective ready to quit the force, admitting his past dreams of heroism and grandeur had failed him.

Maybe it was the fact that he refused to believe that a woman as beautiful and soft and passionate and loving as she was could be capable of multiple homicides.

Her heavy breathing had turned to low moaning, a sound that was a plea for more. Her eyes were still closed, and she was still offering him the profile of her face, basking in the pleasure he was slowly dragging out of her with each feathery caress. Her hands were both at her sides, long, sinuous fingers dragging across the sheets.

Cloud was beginning to lose all sense of his surroundings again, but he could give fuck-all about that, caught up in the majestic beauty writhing below him. Slowly sliding his hands away from her breasts, he dropped one to the center of her belly, holding her in place against his knees while he drifted the other between her thighs, parting her folds with two fingers before sliding them inside of her and dropping his thumb to her clit.

She keened at once in response, her eyes finally opening again and her eyes lighting up, the smile on her face widening. He stroked her listlessly, far too slowly to build toward anything than a staggered purgatory of pleasure, her back arching impossibly higher and demonstrating to him once again how powerful and flexible she truly was. He cocked his head to the side and watched every inch of her in pure, ruinous lust, admiring the curves and twists of her shape as she inched her wetness further forward on his lap, her body angling in chase of what she needed to break her apart again. His blood was on fire in his veins, the scorch of the mako inside of him painful as his adrenaline assaulted his brain, but he refused to relent until she was begging, her shoulders lifting off of the bed as she stared up at him.

“Please, Cloud,” she whined, her voice rising in pitch. Thin beads of sweat had crested all along her torso and lined her forehead, her bangs now sticking to her skin as the heat bellowed inside of her. The balls of her feet were digging into his waist, her thighs and calves locked up tight with tension, her biceps straining as she leaned forward and clawed the sheets.

“Please what?” he asked softly, curving his fingers deeper inside of her, his thumb making a sidelong but purposeless pass over her stiff, pink nub again. He watched her face for a moment and then looked down at her spread center as he teased her, unable to keep from licking his lips at the pretty, slick sight. He glanced up to see her crimson eyes darken, and he pressed his fingers forward even harder, still pinning her to the tops of his thighs with a hand splayed across her belly.

“Please,” she finally huffed in response, her whimpers splintering needily. “Please, Cloud, I need more. Please, give me more, I can’t… it’s too… ah, oh -“

He resisted the urge to laugh out loud at her wanton greediness, transforming the sound into a low growl as he thumbed her aching clit a little more roughly a few times before he withdrew his fingers from her heat completely. She murmured and whined a protest at the lack of contact, but Cloud only smirked down at her, grabbing her waist with both hands as he lifted his hips, angling the hot tip of his cock to her wet and ready passage.

She gasped out a moan when he pushed inside of her, her back turning up into that twisting arch again. He latched onto her thighs and pulled her even closer until their centers were flush against one another and Tifa was locking her legs around him, the heels of her feet pressing into the backs of his thighs. Her eyes pinched shut tight at the penetration, and she bent her neck back and let out a wild, frenzied cry, her mouth wide open.

It sent the savagery loose in Cloud again, a feeling that was wild and insatiable and impossible to tame. He palmed his way to her waist again, holding her tight as he began to stroke deep inside of her, his thrusts increasing in speed but never going too fast, wanting to build her to the peak slowly so that he could stare down at her and drink in her beauty as he worked her away into madness.

He was lost in the contortions of her face, his back and chest blooming with lines of sweat, his forehead leaking as he felt her walls clench and tighten around his throbbing cock. He tried to concentrate, but she was too beautiful and too alluring, and he found himself snapping his eyes shut to the sight of her unwinding in front of him, focusing on the inflamed, slippery feeling of her enveloping him tightly.

His chest was beginning to pressurize, and Cloud’s hands grew desperate, searching along the tight expanse of her tummy, rubbing and squeezing her tenderly while his hips worked in an increasingly crazed succession. He felt her hands drop to the tops of his thighs, her nails digging into his skin as she scrambled for purchase, and she arched again and cried as she tightened and came on his length, his name dripping from her tongue like honey.

Cloud closed his eyes again, gripping her waist impossibly tight under his palms as he began to move faster and harder, driving himself to his own release. He panted and growled and huffed out her name, Tifa tightening around him again and then again with fresh wails of pleasure. He felt a spark shoot off in the back of his brain, and it could have been seconds or minutes or even days when he finally broke apart; he had no idea because he had lost all sense of time.

He felt the muscles inside of him slacken as soon as he’d fully emptied into her, and he leaned forward, bracing himself on his palms on either side of her head and using the last ounces of his strength to keep from collapsing in a heap on top of her. Tifa whined and then loosened beneath him, sliding her legs away from his waist to let them fall bonelessly open at his sides. 

Cloud opened his eyes finally to stare down at her, hearing only his own heartbeat as the stinging pleasure of his climax bled through his nerves and calmly began to fade. Her eyes were still closed, but her mouth was open, her pink tongue exposed as she panted and trembled, her body still sheened with sweat.

She was so beautiful, but Cloud realized that she was never more beautiful than when she was like this, exasperated and liquified and spent, shattered into a million pieces all because of him.

That thought was clogging up his last remaining functioning synapses as he let himself fall beside her on one elbow, leaning in close to her and bringing a hand up to swipe her hair away from the stickiness of her forehead. It was raining harder now; Cloud could hear it beating her windows and even the steel side of the building. With the way that his blood was lit up and stirred, it was soothing, and he found himself in agreement with her earlier statement, curling closer to her with his arm around her, wanting to stay in bed with her forever.

Thunder clapped in the distance, undergirding his latent desires, and Tifa leaned closer to him, emitting a quiet sound of content. She lifted a hand as she pressed into his chest, running her fingers along his ribcage, drifting it in a line toward his chest. She walked her fingers over his pectoral and then circled one nipple, humming with her breath across his skin as Cloud gave her a slight squeeze.

His body still wallowing in a sense of serenity, Cloud found his brain running through thoughts that were foreign and unsolicited but that his mouth couldn’t help but begin to untangle.

“Tifa,” he whispered into her hair.

“Hmm?”

“Can I take you out sometime?” he asked, his voice softer and lower than he’d ever heard it. “Maybe when this case is closed and I have some free time. Someplace nice.”

She pulled back slightly, just enough for their eyes to meet again. He saw a sparkle beneath the garnet in hers, lit up with the excitement of a child, her usual coy seduction abandoned in favor of a honeyed sweetness. She smiled, tipping her head in a slight but firm nod.

“A date?” she asked. “You want to take me on a real date, Cloud?”

He thought about it, nodding in response. He wasn’t sure why he was asking her this now after their relationship had already begun to unfold in such a highly sexual and unconventional manner. But the truth was, staring down into her dark carmine eyes and feeling the weight of his feelings settle deep into his chest, Cloud could admit to himself and himself alone that he was falling for her.

“Yeah,” he breathed, fingers in her hair again. “Something like that.”

Tifa was opening her mouth to respond when Cloud’s PHS began to sing from the bedside table. He groaned as soon as he heard the intrusive sound, Tifa now smirking up at him.

“Could you grab that for me?”

Tifa rolled away from him, shoving the netting that swirled around her bed out of the way and grabbing his device. She turned back to him, handing it over, and Cloud glanced down at the glow of the screen to see Zack’s name.

Groaning, he sat up and turned away from Tifa, leaning forward to hold the device to his ear. 

“Yeah.”

“Where the hell are you?” Zack instantly barked. “Didn’t the Captain say to be back at the station by seven? And I tried to call you last night. Why don’t you ever answer your phone?”

Cloud winced, dragging his hands through his hair again. “Yeah, yeah. I just woke up. I’ll be down in a few.”

“Forget it,” Zack went on with a sigh. “We’ve got bigger problems.  _ Way _ bigger.”

“What is it now?” Cloud asked in frustration.

“Another body,” Zack said, and Cloud thought there was a distinct, shaky uncertainty to Zack’s tone, the quiet tenor of fear. “I can’t talk about it over the phone. You need to get your ass down to The Officers’ Club in Sector3. In a big hurry.”

“Alright.”

“Now, Strife.”

“I’m on my way,” he assented grumpily.

He hung up the PHS before Zack could say another word, dropping it into his lap and running his hand across his face. The earlier pleasant sensations of elation he had been feeling had been washed out of his nerves, his body now tightening up with the stress of his vocation stacking inside of him again.

“Everything okay?”

Her voice was a soft purr, her hands coming up to rest on both of his shoulders. She now had a lit cigarette in one hand, and its smoke was filling the small space around them with a sweet and noxious flavor. Cloud felt his muscles twitch under the smoothness of her palms, and she gave him a reassuring squeeze as she pressed her breasts into his back, relieving some of the tension he felt. He rolled his neck, then reached one hand over his shoulder to rest it on top of hers.

“Yeah, fine. I just gotta get back to work. I’m already late.”

She nodded behind him, slowly sliding away to fall back on her knees in the center of the bed and bring the stick of nicotine between her lips. Cloud kicked his legs over the side of the bed, stretching his limbs and still feeling the sore burn of their passions all across his body.

With that reminder haunting him, Cloud turned back to her before he got out of the bed and dressed. He reached for her chin, pulling her close and pressing a kiss to her cheek, dangerously close to the corner of her mouth.

“I’ll call you later,” he promised her, her eyes lighting up at him in a brand new way.

On his way out, he dumped her whiskey tumbler that he’d swiped the night before for evidence into a nearby public trash can, hearing the glass shatter to bits when it hit the bottom.

* * *

[ ν ] - εγλ - 2021 | February 16th

8:39 AM 

The Officers’ Club - Sector3, Midgar 

Cloud hadn’t seen so much public security activity surround a crime scene in all of his years on the force. He double-parked his cruiser in front of The Officers’ Club in Sector3, a quiet but somewhat exclusive bar and grill that off-duty detectives and lieutenants and higher-ranking officers frequented to discuss their cases over tall stouts and seventy-proof bourbons. Cloud had spent plenty of time in this establishment, usually getting completely plastered alongside Zack, his ears falling numb to the sounds of his comrade’s complaints about their cases.

The entire block was cordoned off, every shop and place of business along the thoroughfare emptied and evacuated of patrons and civilians. The bar was roped off with yellow tape, and the street was lined with public security cruisers and jeeps, all parked at odd angles in the middle of the road, their blue and red lights flashing against the dim, wet morning sky.

Cloud’s windshield wipers tore and swiped at the glass in front of him as he stared at the brick building and the helmeted faces of the grunts who guarded the crime scene, heavy semi-automatic weapons held tight to their armored chests. The rain was still falling down in sheets, the clouds leaving everything in the city dusted in faint hues of gray and slate-blue. He pulled at his jacket, already regretting stepping back out into that mess and getting the leather of his wingtips drenched.

But he didn’t have time to dilly-dally and wait for the weather to let up. He had already pressed his luck taking a detour from Tifa’s to stop at his apartment to shower quickly and change for the day. It couldn’t be helped, though - there was no way that he could show up to work smelling like pussy and sweat, wearing the same clothes he’d had on the day before. It was bad enough every pale expanse of his skin that was left exposed was covered in some form of a love bite or scratch from Tifa Lockhart.

Dressed in gray houndstooth today, Cloud clutched his jacket around him and finally stepped out of his vehicle, jogging lightly through the rain until he was safely under the club’s awning. The grunts barricading the door nodded at him and moved out of his way, and Cloud pushed past them, shaking the excess water from his coat.

He entered the main dining room, narrowing his eyes as he looked around. All of the lights had been turned up to their brightest levels, and it left the bar looking a lot different than he was used to, not smoky and dark but now sterile and bright as lab coats and uniforms moved freely through the space. He could see all of the imperfections in the wood of the bar’s countertop, the stains in the carpet and the dust lining the indents in the walls and the photographs and trophies of past Shinra Public Security brass that had been hung in their honor. Cloud had never noticed these flaws before, but then, he’d always been too drunk to care.

He made his way deeper inside, passing the bar and the first rows of tables and booths, looking for his partner. Everyone he passed was stone-faced and rigid, and an eerie silence clung to the air, far too quiet for the bustle of an active crime scene. It left a cold chill running down his spine, Cloud now suddenly pushing lingering thoughts of Tifa and his earlier annoyance at having his peaceful morning interrupted out of his head.

He spotted Jessie heading in his direction, her gloved hands holding several evidence bags. She was staring down at her hands as she moved brusquely, and Cloud instantly stopped her with a palm to her shoulder when she passed him.

“Hey.”

“Oh! Detective,” she stopped, clearly startled. “I’m just heading back to the station to take these to the lab. Fair is with the Captain and others on the second floor.”

“Second floor?” Cloud repeated, unaware that this place had a second floor.

“It’s a vacated apartment,” Jessie explained quickly. “The body was found there. Listen, I gotta go before the Captain has an aneurysm.”

“What happened?” Cloud asked, ignoring her.

She looked up at him, her brown eyes wide. Then, she shook her head. “You better just get up there,” she responded.

She pulled away from him and jogged out of the bar before he could say another word. Annoyed, Cloud rolled his eyes and dropped his hands into his pockets, unbuttoning his outer jacket as he made his way up the stairs in the back of the dining room.

He could finally hear the faint din of voices when he emerged onto the landing at the top of the steps, and he turned down the quiet hallway in its direction. It was a small apartment, lined by doors that led to other rooms. At the very end of the hall, he distinctly heard Cid Highwind swearing, the pungent aroma of cigarette smoke already hitting his nose.

He rounded his way into the room, finding a mediocre-sized master bedroom. The rubber soles of his wingtips clicked against the wooden floorboards, leaving creaks in their wake, and every eye in the room turned to him as he entered.

But Cloud didn’t look back at them. His attention was focused on the threadbare bed in the center of the room, rain and lighting bordering it in the windows on either side, a massive, hulking body bleeding out into the dirty old linens left behind.

Public Security Chief Joseph R. Heidegger was sprawled face down across the mattress, still wearing his dark green military dress. Cloud recognized that uniform anywhere, just as he knew Heidegger’s massive expanse of shoulders and back. The center of his left shoulder was blackened by two bullet wounds, the blood by now having darkened as it spread across his skin and his clothes.

It had only been a little over twelve hours ago that they had all seen him alive.

“I’m finished,” Captain Cid Highwind was saying to Cloud’s right. “Twenty-four years on the force, washed away in less than seventy-two hours.” 

Cloud looked over to find the Captain standing two feet away from the gruesome discovery on the bed, his boots just a pace away from the blood that had begun to spill over the sides and onto the floor, a cigarette between two fingers. Lieutenant Wallace stood at his side, arms folded and face tired and somber. Zack was next to them both, scratching his fingers through his wild black hair, a look of perplexity and shock etched across his face.

“What happened?” Cloud dared ask after a long moment.

Highwind’s head snapped up. “What happened?” he repeated. “Another executive is dead - and this time it’s one of our very own. The Chief of goddamn Public Security himself.”

“Can’t believe they’re going after cops,” Barret muttered at his side, then slammed his gun arm against the windowsill behind him in frustration.

The room fell silent for a long moment, everyone seemingly at a loss for words. Cid was frozen, still staring at Heidegger’s lifeless form, shaking his head slowly as he continued to chain-smoke. Agents and technicians quietly filed in and out of the room, taking photographs, collecting evidence, scanning UV-light over the space in search of clues.

Wading through the fog that had entered his head, Cloud fell in step beside Zack. His partner looked over at him, blinking a few times as if to clear the mist from his own mind.

“Is the MO the same?” Cloud finally asked. “Do we think it’s the same killer?”

“Almost exactly the same, but seems like she’s gone back to using a revolver as her preferred weapon,” Zack answered. “Maybe she just really had it out for Hojo and wanted him to suffer a little more. At any rate, red lipstick and an earring were all left, though this time, she expended two rounds. I imagine it might be because it would take at least two shots to bring Heidegger down.”

At this, Barret grunted angrily at Zack’s side.

Cloud resisted the urge to pull out a cigarette right then and there, staring again at Heidegger’s bulk on the mattress. He couldn’t imagine Tifa pulling off a stunt like this. More and more, these killings were taking on a viciousness that only Scarlet seemed capable of, given her ruthless ambition for corporate power. 

Not to mention, Cloud had spent most of the night with Tifa.

“Time of death?” he asked Zack.

“Coroner thinks eight, maybe nine PM,” Zack answered. “Before the after-work crowd starts to really gather in the bars and before most of the officers and beat cops are relieved from the first shift and start clogging the bars. We saw Heiddegar around eight last night at HQ, so it’s safe to say this was his next stop afterwards. I can only guess that somebody lured him up here before it got too busy downstairs.”

Cloud breathed out slowly. He hadn’t gotten to Tifa’s apartment until after eleven last night. And prior to that, he’d last seen her around noon. That gave her a healthy window to put another man six feet under.

Once again, she had no alibi, and Cloud felt a cold line of sweat drip under his collar.

Cid was suddenly speaking again, his voice gruff and emotionless, and the sound of it was somehow more jarring than his usual screams and shouts.

“We reconvene at the station in twenty minutes,” he offered curtly to the three of them. “We work this case until we solve it, until our fingers fall off or Rufus dismantles this entire department, whichever comes first.” He turned back to Heidegger’s corpse, shaking his head. “This is my fuckin’ fault for sending everybody home last night.”

“Now, Cap, you can’t - “ Zack interjected, but Cid had already made his way out of the door, a cloud of smoke in his wake.

“You heard the man,” Barret growled at them both as he wheeled around to look at them. “We got plenty of evidence to check on back downtown. Don’t take your sweet time, either.”

He swore lightly under his breath and followed Cid, leaving Cloud and Zack standing there as the technicians continued to scour the room. Cloud could only stare, feeling an odd numbness in his joints as his mind spun with thoughts, finally turning away and following behind the Captain and the Lieutenant.

Zack was instantly in step with him, taking the stairs to the ground level at his side. “Where were you last night?”

“Why do you keep asking me that?” Cloud snapped. “Do I go asking you where you spend your nights all the goddamn time?”

Zack only popped off a laugh in response to his scathing tone. “You know I’m with Aerith and my kids every night, Cloud,” he replied nonchalantly, tossing his head. “You, I’m a little worried about. Your neck is even more scratched up and bruised than it was yesterday. That high-neck collar isn’t hiding anything.”

Cloud rolled his eyes dismissively, but Zack was grabbing him by the shoulder, pulling him back so that he could stand in front of him.

“Listen,” he whispered harshly, keeping his voice low so that the other officers around them couldn’t hear. “I know you and your dick are in deep with this Lockhart woman. It’s written all over your stupid face. I don’t know what the hell you’re doing, Cloud, but if this case goes any further south, I won’t be able to protect you.”

Cloud shook his shoulder out of Zack’s grip, pouting angrily at the floor.

“You’re gonna go down right with her,” Zack warned when he didn’t look back up at him.

But Cloud had had enough. He turned away, shoving past a pair of grunts that stood by the bar.

“I’ll see you back at the station,” he called over his shoulder, leaving Zack to slowly shake his head in despair.

* * *

[ ν ] - εγλ - 2021 | February 16th

10:07 AM 

Sector0 Public Security Precinct - Homicide Division 

The entire ride back to the precinct, Cloud stewed in his thoughts, his gloved hands in a tight grip around his steering wheel as he navigated the streets through the dismal and rainy city. He couldn’t stop the way that his brain whirlpooled through alternating thoughts of Tifa, of his nights spent with her, and of images of her with a smoking pistol in hand. Nor could he shake his thoughts of the dead, Heiddeger and Hojo and Lazard and Reeve and the Turks, all bloodied and broken forever, possibly at her hands. He wondered if it were likely that she could be responsible for such atrocities, Zack’s words like needles pricking into the center of his cerebral cortex.

All of this had soured his mood considerably by the time he parked his car in front of the station. He got out, feeling the rain once again flatten his hair, only piling onto his aggravation as he ran up the steps and inside of the building.

“Detective Strife,” Wedge called as soon as he stepped inside the detective’s bureau, not even giving him an opportunity to shed his jacket. “The Captain is convening everyone in Conference Room B to go over the evidence.”

Cloud nodded, trying not to scowl but finding it difficult to set his facial expressions to neutral. He dumped his jacket on his chair behind his desk, smoothing out his vest and adjusting his tie before he shook the rainwater from his hair and made his way down the halls to the conference rooms.

He found Cid, Barret, and Zack, along with Biggs and Jessie, seated at a long table inside of Conference Room B. Cid had a personal ashtray in front of him, a cigarette pasted to his lips. The conference table was littered with evidence bags, and there was an overhead projector casting images onto a screen at the front of the room.

“Bout time you showed up,” Barret huffed as soon as he entered the room. “Find a seat.”

Cloud wordlessly made his way around the table, his eyes scanning over the evidence on the table. He fell into a chair beside Zack, pulling out a cigarette of his own from the case inside of his vest. 

“Now that we’re all here,” Cid began gruffly, leaning forward over the piles of folders and papers he had in front of him, “Let’s go over all of this evidence carefully and find out what we actually know. We can’t afford another misstep or another goddamn day of this case going on. All our lives are at risk, and if our killer goes any higher, Rufus Shinra might be next on her list.”

“Let’s work our way backward,” Biggs offered, taking the opportunity to lean forward and press a button on a small handheld remote that operated the projector. He clicked, bringing up side-by-side photos of all of the victim’s collars, stained by red smudges of lipstick.

“Before his death, Heidegger obtained clearance from President Rufus to sweep all of the offices of our suspects - Scarlet Price, Elena Hancock, and Tifa Lockhart - at the Shinra Headquarters to aid in our investigation. As such, we were able to gather more evidentiary samples that could be used to find successful matches on the victims.”

He zoomed in on the lipstick. “If you see here, we discussed the shade of red produced by Snow Cosmetics,” Biggs went on, Cloud not understanding why his heartbeat was suddenly so loud. “All of the victims, including Heidegger, were stained with Red No. 7, the shade we’ve confirmed to be Lockhart’s favorite. We could find no evidence in her office that Ms. Price wears anything but Red No. 3. Ms. Hancock, on the other hand, wears a drugstore brand called ‘Wild Colors’.”

Jessie choked out a mild laugh at this.

“This is still circumstantial,” Cloud argued, unnecessarily forcefully.

Biggs just shrugged. “Just wait,” he said, pressing a button on the remote. The screen shifted, displaying images of the seven earrings that had been left behind on all of the victims. They were all silver teardrops, glittering diamond studs embedded at the apex. He gestured to the evidence bags on the table, where the physical versions were laid out in a neat, sparkling row, a few of them still stained with dots of blood.

“It took a while, but we were able to trace the origin of this jewelry,” Biggs explained. “These earrings are made from refined Mythril and crafted by a jeweler in Junon who excavates the stuff from the Mythril Mines himself.”

“Didn’t Lockhart work in Junon for Rufus for a long while?” Zack asked, and Cloud just glared at him, blue eyes aflame.

“She did,” Biggs agreed, “But that’s not enough. Scarlet Price spends almost fifty percent of her time in Junon as the Weapons Director. She’s responsible for the cannon there, the Sister Ray. In fact, she even owns a home in Junon.”

“So we did some digging into the financial system,” Jessie added. “Turns out that both Lockhart and Price have purchased this style of earring numerous times over the last several years. Quite a coincidence that they are both so fond of this style, don’t you think?”

“Could they be working together?” Zack wondered out loud, and Cloud just slouched lower into his chair.

“Sounds like another dead end,” Barret suddenly interceded. “Ain’t you got anything we can use to get a warrant? None of this shit is gonna help us make an arrest that will hold water with any judge!”

“Hold your chocobos, big guy,” Jessie stopped him with a bright laugh, leaning forward to snatch the controls from Biggs. “Allow me to present the icing on the cake to you boys.”

She flipped the screen again, a grin now plastered to her face. An image of a strand of black hair appeared on the screen, clearly magnified so that the keratin scales were visible. Cloud narrowed his eyes at it, chewing the inside of his lip nervously and blowing a plume of smoke above his head.

“Take a look,” Jessie said. “This is the strand of dark hair that I found on Professor Hojo’s lab coat. It turns out my hunch was correct. This hair does not belong to Hojo’s slimy head. It more than likely fell off of our killer during the murder.”

The air began to swell out of the room, everyone silent as they waited for Jessie to drop the other shoe.

“And?” Cid finally demanded, slapping his open palm against the table, disrupting all of the evidence. 

Jessie’s grin widened. “As Biggs mentioned, we had all of the offices at Shinra swept. And…” she clicked the remote again, and Cloud felt his spine grow rigid and icy when two images of strands of hair appeared on the left-hand side of the screen, stacked on top of one another for comparison, an image of Tifa Lockhart from her Shinra ID badge appearing on the right.

“We were able to find a match!” Jessie practically cheered, dumping the remote on the table. “That strand of hair matches the one I peeled off of the back of Lockhart’s chair in her office. I knew that that hair only belonged to a woman. No man I know has hair that thick and luscious, aside from maybe Tseng… and he’s already dead.”

Cid was slamming the table again, swearing, the light behind his cornflower blue eyes erupting. “Enough of all of that,” he barked. “This is excellent. Lieutenant, get on the phone with Judge Valentine right now. I want a warrant for Tifa Lockhart’s arrest on my desk in the next thirty minutes. Strife, Fair, prepare yourselves to bring her in.”

Barret was already pushing out of his chair and leaving the room to do just that, but Cloud was sweating, his insides watery and cold as Jessie triumphantly turned off the screen and Zack rose from his seat at his side.

* * *

[ ν ] - εγλ - 2021 | February 16th

6:25 PM 

Alexander Building - Sector0, Midgar 

It was hours later when Cloud and Zack finally received confirmation from Barret Wallace that Judge Vincent Valentine had granted them the warrant for the arrest of Tifa Lockhart for seven counts of first-degree murder. Vincent Valentine was meticulous and poured over every bit of minutiae in a case, and so it was no surprise to Cloud that they came nowhere near Cid Highwind’s wildly unrealistic expectations of a thirty-minute deadline. At least, no one had died while they were waiting, so there was that much to be grateful for. 

The details in the sealed envelope were so explosive that they had been delivered by an armored Shinra security van, every measure taken to keep the newest development in the case under wraps and away from the prying eyes and ears of the press before the story leaked all throughout Midgar and the rest of the Planet.

Cloud had been sitting numbly at his desk in the detective’s bureau, staring repeatedly at the headshot of Tifa he’d printed and the case files that he’d accumulated, reading and re-reading her dossier from the Shinra database and thinking again about her sad words to him about her life in Nibelheim and her loneliness. He couldn’t stop staring at the photos of the dead men, awash with disbelief that she could kill them all so cold-bloodily and in only a matter of a string of hours, making her one of the most ruthless serial killers Midgar had ever seen.

Whatever past hurts and torments had been laid across her heart, from Shinra or from men in general, Cloud found himself ripped apart by all of it, remembering their passions that morning and how he had promised to take her out on a real date, to court her, already knowing that despite the circumstances around them that he was falling for her.

And now, it was crashing all around him.

Zack had seemed to realize the storm clouds that had gathered over his head, because he avoided him for the rest of the afternoon while they waited, leaving him to brood at his desk alone until the warrant came and it was time to leave. Even then, he had approached him slowly, calmly letting him know that they were authorized to make the arrest and that it was time to go.

It was still raining as Cloud rode in the passenger seat of Zack’s cruiser, staring silently out of the window and watching the dim, silver and neon green cityscape pass by. The sky was already dark, lightning occasionally highlighting the horizon beyond. All of it was a melancholy reflection of Cloud’s heart, blackened and cold and torn asunder.

Since the workday had already ended, they bypassed finding Tifa at her workplace at the Shinra Tower and instead headed back to the Alexander Building. As Zack pulled his vehicle up to the curb in front, throwing the car into park, Cloud chewed on the filter of his current cigarette and blew the smoke past a gap in the cracked window, staring at the building looming overhead.

“Listen, man,” Zack began, capturing his attention. “Are you sure you’re up to this? I know how you feel -“

“Let’s just get this over with,” Cloud cut him off, pushing open the car door and tossing his cigarette to the wind.

They made their way quickly through the rain in silence, stepping inside of the plush front lobby of the Alexander.

It was eerily silent, no residents passing through or lingering among the sitting area in front of the hearth. It was an odd spectacle for that time in the late afternoon, and Cloud and Zack both paused, looking around and finding the lobby deserted.

“Is it usually dead like this here?” Zack wondered out loud.

Cloud let his eyes scan the room, falling to the main desk where the doormen and security usually parked. That station, too, was abandoned. Remembering distinctly the rent-a-cop who had stopped him from going up to see Tifa before, even when he had shown him his badge, Cloud pushed aside his earlier despairing and distracting thoughts, pursing his lips together as he made his way over to the counter and looked around.

“There’s nobody here,” he called back to Zack, stepping away. Zack was facing him, scratching his head.

“That doesn’t seem normal.”

“It’s not,” Cloud responded, still looking around. “We should be careful moving through this building.”

“Do you think Lockhart got a tip?” Zack whispered, moving in side by side with Cloud as they walked together to the elevators, both now with their hands ready to reach into their jackets for their pistols.

Cloud pressed the button for the 60 th floor and looked around, the back of his mind electrified and astir. He couldn’t imagine Tifa masterminding an entire building to shut down in an effort to throw them off of her trail.

“I don’t know what’s going on,” Cloud answered, “Just keep your eyes open.”

They waited a few moments longer, hearing the internal grinds of the elevator inside of the building as it moved along its pulleys. He tapped his foot against the marble flooring, feeling a chilling sense of anxiety beginning to build inside of him as he watched the numbers descend. He tried to shake it loose, but it clung to him like sticky paper, and he wondered how much of it concerned Tifa and how much of it was tied to his deeper instincts that something larger was at play here, as if they were walking headfirst into a massive trap.

“What the fuck?” Zack swore as soon as the elevator doors slid open.

Cloud turned to see the inside of the elevator was swathed with bright, fresh bloodstains. They ran in smears across the smooth glass of the walls and dotted the carpeted floor. The scent of iron was heavy in the air, and already, Cloud and Zack were both reaching into their holsters for their Glocks.

“What was the last floor this thing was on?” Cloud demanded.

Zack carefully stepped inside of the elevator, avoiding stepping into the blood. He checked the panel docked into the elevator’s controls.

“60 th ,” he responded grimly.

That had Cloud’s heart instantly in his ears, terror spiking alongside a sudden rush of adrenaline in his veins. He stepped inside of the elevator beside Zack, nodding his head at him as the door slid closed, Zack pressing the button for the return ascent to the 60 th floor.

Cloud’s heart lived inside of his throat the entire way up, beating but feeling as if it were locked in a cage. He thought over and over again about Tifa, wondering with rising, palpable dread if she was okay or if she was hurt or if she had just murdered someone feet away from her own apartment.

The more he thought about all of this, the less sense that any of it made, despite the evidence that had stared him right in the face hours ago, despite Tifa’s questionable behaviors and somewhat loose application of the facts. There was a piece missing to all of this, and it bothered Cloud deeply. The sight of these bloodstains was only sending new, horrific threads of trepidation into his spine.

He breathed as deeply as he could to still the pace of his heart when they finally arrived on the 60 th floor with a ding of the elevator. Zack turned to him one final time, and they both held their pistols at the ready as the doors pulled open.

They made to step out but instantly stopped with a start, both backing up into the elevator again at the sight laid out in front of them. 

Crumpled in a wild heap of limbs at the lip of the elevator, stretched out along the soft, cream-colored carpet, was Shinra Weapons Director Scarlet Price, covered in blood and very, very dead.

“Son of Odin,” Zack swore, glancing at Cloud before he stepped out of the elevator and maneuvered around her body, still holding his gun up. Cloud did the same, carefully navigating around the corpse. He checked the hallway, finding it empty and quiet and dim, but nonetheless, his nerves were on fire, his hackles raised as he offered the corridor a final purview before he turned to look down at Scarlet.

“They got her good,” Zack commented, tipping his head to his side like a confused but thoughtful puppy.

Cloud crouched to his knees to get a better look, scanning his blue gaze over Scarlet’s broken form. She was in another red ensemble, this time a red dress with a plunging neckline and a matching blazer over it. It was, by her standards, somewhat conservative. Both of her high-heeled pumps had scattered, lost in two separate directions, and rolled away from her. Her pale, green eyes were wide open but void of sight, staring ahead into eternal darkness, her mouth shaped into a round, silent scream. 

But it was the wounds that littered her body that were both most intriguing and confusing and off-putting about this entire display. Nothing about the way that her body had been hacked and slashed made any sense to Cloud, not in the grand scheme of this entire shitshow of a case. She had been torn open from gut to throat, multiple times, so badly and deeply that he could see the pale shine of her entrails beneath layers of blood and ripped-open epidermis. The slashes were surrounded by puncture marks, as if her assailants had taken the time to not only split her open but then further decorate her body with stabs.

There was no lipstick and no earring to be found, either, not to mention, Scarlet was a woman, completely throwing off their earlier notions of the case.

Cloud absorbed all of these observations, then slowly parroted them back to Zack, who nodded his head as he digested them in agreement, his partner now anxiously shifting back and forth on his feet. They both were still holding their guns at low-ready positions despite the stillness of the hallway.

“Something isn’t adding up here,” Cloud finally said after a long moment passed and they had fully absorbed the scene in front of them. He wondered again about the silence in the main lobby and the absence of security there. “Nothing about this death is like any of the others. And yet, Scarlet is a Shinra executive - one of only two aside from Rufus who remained alive.”

“Maybe Lockhart is feeling cornered,” Zack offered, running his hand over his chin. “Sometimes, the killers change up their tactics when they are close to the end of their spree. This could be her final send-off. Unless, she plans to go after the President for her finale.”

Cloud rose to his feet, thinking about this. Tifa had deep connections to Rufus Shinra, he knew, professional connections that had soured. He remembered their lunch together the day before and their tense conversation in the Seventh Heaven VIP room, and suddenly, Cloud felt so, so stupid for ignoring all of that and his best inclinations just so that he could get his dick wet.

“Listen,” he said then to Zack, finally holstering his gun. “We are going to have to split up for a little bit to cover all this ground. You call for backup and have this building shut down and searched. Keep an eye on this hallway. I’m going to go after Lockhart.”

“Are you sure that’s a - “

“I think -“ Cloud cut him off instantly, “I think Lockhart might be dangerous, Zack. Maybe more dangerous than we originally thought. But she trusts me. I can pin her down. But if she sees you, she’ll freak, and more people might die.”

Zack stared back at him, and Cloud could see the urge to protest in his aquamarine eyes. But his best friend and partner slowly nodded, pulling out his PHS and activating the radio function to call for backup.

“I’ll be right here,” Zack affirmed as his radio crackled to life.

Cloud swallowed thickly, the back of his throat feeling as thin as paper, and he turned with a nod, heading deeper down the hall toward Tifa’s apartment. He rounded the bend near the end by Reeve Tuesti’s, stopping at Tifa’s door and resting his palm atop its wood before he inhaled a deep breath.

_ You can do this. You have to.  _

_ Before somebody else, including your dumbass, dies. _

He knocked twice on Tifa’s door with his knuckles, the sound loud and echoing down the hall. From where he stood, he could no longer see Zack nor Scarlet’s bloodied corpse, and this fact did nothing to ease his nerves.

“Tifa,” he found himself calling through her door with frustration when she took too long to answer.

Moments later, Cloud heard the bolts and chains slide and click, and then the door slid open, revealing Tifa standing there in front of him. She was dressed casually, a white tank top that was cropped over a black sports bra, a simple knit skirt that was way too enticingly short above thick black thigh-highs that wrapped around her powerful, shapely legs. Her hair was pulled up high in a ponytail, displaying the sharpness of her features and the cool expanse of her throat. 

Despite his reasons for coming here and the dire situation down the hall, Cloud was instantly hot and distracted.

“Detective,” she trilled, a smile lighting up her beautiful features as soon as she saw him. “I wasn’t expecting to see you again so soon. I was just about to start my evening workout.”

“I need to speak to you,” he said stiffly, trying to clear the sudden haziness from his brain. “It’s important.”

She was still nodding, but there was a slight waver in it, and Cloud could read that she detected the seriousness in his tone. She stepped aside to let him in. “Just couldn’t stay away, could you?” she teased.

Cloud tried to do his best to ignore the sugar in her voice as he looked around her apartment, hands now in his pockets but itching to reach for his gun. Nothing seemed out of place; it was quiet and serene with the exception of the rain that continued to batter the windows beyond.

“I’m glad you stopped by,” she said, closing the door behind him. “Here, let me take your jacket.”

Cloud debated refusing, but he definitely didn’t want to raise her suspicions. He obliged silently, sliding his arms out of his coat, handing it to her, and studying her hands and arms as she moved to hang it up. There were no traces of blood on her anywhere that he could see.

She was one hell of an efficient killer, he figured.

“I usually start with yoga on the balcony, in the sun,” Tifa explained, coming up to stand beside him. “But it’s raining today, so I was just going to stretch in the living room.”

“I see,” Cloud clipped out in response, trying not to think too hard or too distractedly about Tifa in her miniskirt and crop top and thigh highs, doing yoga where the world could see.

“But you’re here now,” she had moved in so close, so quickly, Cloud was almost taken aback, and he realized in the back of his mind that he was already losing control of this situation. His body was overheating and growing too responsive, and when she pressed a palm to his chest and unthreaded his tie from where it was tucked into his vest, tugging on him gently, he nearly lost it. “So I suspect I can get a much better workout.”

Her words set off rocket launchers somewhere in the back of his mind, and Cloud could only stare at her bright red lips, momentarily forgetting that his partner was down the hall, hovering over another bloodied goddamn corpse.

He couldn’t assemble the right level of coherency quickly enough before she was pulling him along by his tie, making him now a slave to her every whim as she dragged him toward her couch. He followed her obediently, his eyes glued to her hips as the last remaining vestige of his good and rational sense tried to climb its way out of the lust that was contaminating his every thought.

She turned and thrust him onto the couch, Cloud falling back to sit with his knees spread. Without hesitation, Tifa was biting her bottom lip in that coy way that turned his insides to liquified stardust, and he could do nothing when she climbed over and into his lap, straddling him instantly and cupping his cheeks in both her palms.

He hated how desperately responsive he was to her kisses, unable to control the way his hands instantly rose to her waist, fingertips ghosting over her hips as her lips sweetly found his. The heat between them was quickly simmering, and Tifa was settling comfortably into his lap as if she belonged there.

Their lips were melded together in a hot embrace before she finally pulled away, dragging his bottom lip with her in a long suck. She offered him another smile, one that was too genuine and warm for a woman capable of putting men three times her size down with guns and knives. He wondered what kind of sociopath he was dealing with, remembering the toned perfection of her body that seemed a little too powerful, feeling it again in every muscle of her body as she rolled her hips over him and viced his legs between her thighs.

Those thoughts were abandoned when she bent her neck and ran her tongue in a warm, wet stripe over the hollow of his throat, forcing him to lift his hips compulsively against her warm center, her skirt fanned out around them both. Cloud’s brain was engaged in a fierce firefight, full-blown warfare tearing his thoughts apart as he tried to remember the severity of the situation he was embroiled in. He recalled Zack radioing backup and standing with a pleading look on his face above Scarlet Price’s dead body, and he opened his eyes, momentarily gathering his senses as he looked around frantically and tried to find a way out of this mess.

“Tifa,” he finally called after a long moment. “Hey, Tifa.”

She finally stopped, dragging her teeth and her tongue away from his neck to sit back and look at him. Her lips were swollen and wet, her chest rising and falling as she panted, and Cloud gasped, trying to pull air into his own lungs.

“Hm?”

“Would you mind getting me a drink?” he hated how broken and disheveled his voice sounded. “It’s been a long day.”

“Whiskey okay?”

“Y-yeah, of course.”

She nodded with another warm smile, sliding off of him and offering enough space for him to finally catch his breath. She patted the inside of his thigh affectionately, then sauntered away, Cloud unable to pull his eyes from her ass or the white space of flesh above her thigh highs until she was gone.

When she disappeared into her kitchen, he nearly dropped his head into his hands in distress, trying desperately to gather his bearings and pep talk himself into reclaiming control of this situation. Tifa was dangerous. It was clear as day now, and he had to do something before it was too late. His partner was waiting for him less than a hundred feet away.

He was firing his brain through every option he could think of when his eyes caught sight of something dark and glimmering to his right. Cloud turned, finding that sometime during their necking, Tifa’s bright yellow handbag that was sitting on the couch beside them had been knocked over. The clasp had fallen open, and some of the contents - a tube of lipstick, a compact mirror, a dolphin keychain - had spilled out.

But none of that had sucked in his attention the way that the black and silver grip panel of a handgun did.

Cloud stared at it for long moments, distantly hearing the sounds of Tifa maneuvering in the kitchen as she fixed their drinks, the fridge opening and ice cubes clinking into glass. He narrowed his eyes, a hundred new terrors unfolding in his mind.

Grateful he was still wearing his gloves, Cloud carefully reached forward and pulled the gun fully out of her bag, holding it up by its grip as he inspected it.

Staring at the long, shimmering barrel, Cloud realized right away that it was a Shinra-issued Magnum 500 revolver, one whose magazine was fully loaded with .500 caliber bullets.

The same ones that had been used to kill Reeve, the Turks, Lazard, and Heidegger.

Cloud’s entire body had gone stiff and numb as he sat there, dumbfounded, staring at the weapon. It seemed there was no possibility for redemption now; there was no way to turn back. Every piece of evidence they continued to collect, up to this very moment, pointed to Tifa Lockhart as the killer of these rich and powerful men.

And that he had been sleeping with her, finding himself succumbing to their entwined desires, only lifted and exposed his own weaknesses and depravities, leaving his esophagus crowded over with fire and brimstone.

He emptied the magazine of all of its remaining bullets, letting them pool into his hand before he dumped them into the pocket of his suit. He then sat there, calmly turning the gun over and over again between his fingers before Tifa appeared in front of him with two tumblers in hand.

“Cloud?” she began tentatively, coming to a stop in front of him. She set the glasses down, her eyes now wide with worry, but Cloud was already at his feet, advancing toward her.

“Why do you have this?” he demanded, holding up the gun.

She took a step back, her mouth dropping open as she nearly tripped over her own feet. But Cloud did not stop pressing toward her, the anger and the betrayal now creating guerrilla warfare in his brain and in his heart. It was unbearable, and it was taking all of the control left in his mako-addled body not to grab her by the forearms and shake her viciously.

“Where did you get that?” she asked instead of answering. “Were you going through my bag?”

He kept striding forward, and Tifa kept stumbling backward, trying to avoid running into the coffee table and a nearby ottoman as she went. But Cloud was past caring.

“It fell out,” he answered simply. “What are you doing with the same revolver that killed all those Shinra executives? Did you gut Scarlet like a fish, too?”

“What?” she cried, almost at the glass of the window that bordered the balcony outside.

“I knew there was something about you,” he snarled, backing her up to the glass until she could go no further. “I was so  _ stupid _ to believe you. You know, I came here to arrest you tonight. You left your hair all over Hojo’s body. But despite that, I still wanted to  _ trust _ you.”

Her eyes were welling up with tears, but Cloud could see that she too was growing angry, that the salt that threatened to run down her cheeks was born from frustration.

“I’m being framed,” she cried, and Cloud almost laughed at how stupid and desperate she sounded. “Please, Cloud, you have to believe me. I w-was telling you the truth. I didn’t kill anyone. I - “

He wanted to choke her to get her to stop talking, was even thinking about doing it, but they were both stopped by the sudden boom of gunshots in the hallway beyond. They rang out like twin bombs, quickly followed by a guttural shout, and instantly, Cloud’s attention was redirected elsewhere.

“Zack,” he swore, backing away and tucking her empty and useless weapons into his waistband, removing his own from his shoulder holster.

“Stay here,” he threatened, “Don’t move from that spot.”

But of course, she didn’t listen, instantly following behind him as he vacated her apartment in a sprint, his heart echoing in his ears.

Cloud dashed back around the corner and down the hallway toward the elevators, his eyes growing wide and his skull beginning to pound with a dull, painful ache when he found Zack slumped over against the elevator doors, Scarlet’s supine form still in its same spot. His partner’s jacket and suit were torn open with distinct slash marks, blooms of red leaking through, his right hand clutched over his left shoulder, holding on to a leaking wound there.

“Zack!” Cloud instantly shouted in horror. He momentarily forgot about Tifa, dropping to crouch by Zack’s side, still holding his pistol at the ready as his eyes darted around.

“What happened?” he asked, his heart unfolding when Zack wheezed. “Keep the pressure on that wound!”

“I’m okay,” Zack coughed. “Backup is on its way. But Rufus…”

“Rufus?” Cloud repeated incredulously.

“Him and that damn dog,” Zack cursed. “I tried to stop him, but -“

Cloud heard Tifa swear behind him, realizing finally that she’d followed him. He started to whirl around to her, but she was running for the stairwell at the end of the hall.

“I think he went to the roof,” Zack choked out.

Cloud didn’t understand anything that was happening, but Zack was losing steam, closing his eyes and grunting. Cloud tried to ignore the tears that welled up in his eyes, reaching for his PHS to scream into the radio for backup again.

“Officer down!” he shouted. “I need immediate assistance, 60 th floor, Alexander building!”

Zack was still breathing, but Cloud didn’t know how long it would last. He cast a hasty Cura spell, but it was only enough to pump fresh oxygen into Zack’s lungs, his wounds persistent. 

The adrenaline in his blood was now alight with the mako that ran along his veins, and pressing his partner’s palm against his wound to encourage him to keep it pressurized, Cloud reluctantly turned away and made his way for the staircase, following behind Tifa.

He sprinted up the remaining floors to the roof, seated right above the 70 th floor, which happened to be Rufus Shinra’s penthouse. His lungs were burning as he ran, scaling the steps two at a time in hopes to catch up to Tifa before something further horrifying happened.

His mind was running new races around itself as he tried to process the events of the last three and a half minutes that had unfolded. He was still wading his way through Tifa’s massive betrayal, the weight of which had finally slammed into him with the force of a forty-ton anvil, only to have everything turned upside down at the appearance of President Rufus Shinra, who had apparently mortally wounded his partner. 

And throughout all of this, Cloud was finding himself consumed by guilt, guilt for being so stupid and falling for Tifa, guilt for not doing his job better and taking it more seriously, guilt for splitting up from Zack and leaving him alone when they were supposed to be partners.

That last thought was electrifying his mind when he finally emerged on the rooftop, his thighs burning, his clothes and skin instantly assaulted and soaked through by the downpour from above.

Cloud heard a shout and a scream to his left, followed by a bellowing laugh, and blinking against the rain, he followed the sound, his wingtips slapping against the puddles of rain that pooled on the concrete of the roof. Bending the curve around a huge transformer, Cloud came to a stop when he found Tifa standing across from Rufus Shinra, her hands on her hips.

Rufus was carrying a revolver not unlike the one that Cloud had found moments ago in Tifa’s purse, though he recognized instantly from the faint green glow around it that his was enhanced with mako and stacked with materia. The Shinra President was dressed in all white, his suit and trench coat now drenched, his pale yellow hair sticking to the sides of his face as the rain continued to fall in slats. But for a man who was normally so prim and hung up on appearances, he seemed oblivious to it now, a wild look coloring his usually emotionless, icy blue eyes.

“Ah,” Rufus intoned when Cloud came up behind Tifa, a smirk pulling at his lips as his eyes now collected with Cloud’s. “I see you’ve brought me someone else to play with, Ms. Lockhart.”

“This ends now, Rufus,” Tifa growled at him in response, and Cloud realized that her feet had taken up a fighter’s stance, sneakers planted firmly against the wet concrete, her fists raised up in front of her.

Cloud was firing through new questions about all of this when he heard a muffled cry, and he looked beyond Rufus to see his genetically mako-enhanced canine, Darkstar, pacing and snarling nastily in front of two figures who were gagged and bound at the wrists against the roof’s railing. Narrowing his eyes in the darkness and the rain, Cloud realized that the two shapes were Palmer Garafolo and Elena Hancock.

Shinra’s last two remaining executive-level officials.

“Rufus, drop your weapon,” Cloud demanded, taking another step forward. “Release the hostages, and we won’t have any problems. The entire Public Security Force is on its way here at this very moment.”

Rufus just laughed mirthfully in response, tossing his head back so that his pale throat became lined with rainwater. “Do you think Public Security would dare to even lay a thumb on me?” he asked, his voice thick with sarcasm. “I own all of you.”

This made Cloud’s blood boil, even as he was still trying to piece together how all of this fit together. Instead of answering, he turned to Tifa.

“You need to get out of here,” he told her.

She turned to him, her dark red eyes ablaze with fury, her fringe sticking to the sides of her face and her ponytail now a heavy, wet rope behind her.

“Back off, Strife,” she insisted, her voice now carrying a tone he’d never heard before. “You know nothing, and it was supposed to stay that way. Rufus is mine to take down.”

Cloud just opened his mouth, dumbfounded by this new Tifa, no longer wily and artfully seductive, but determined and steadfast and  _ angry _ . She turned away from him, her attention back on Rufus, who was now laughing thickly into the air.

“Settle down, now, Ms. Lockhart,” Rufus crooned. “Don’t get too ahead of yourself.”

“Did you kill all of those Shinra executives?” Cloud blurted, stepping forward in confusion and rage, his eyes on Rufus’s revolver.

Rufus was laughing again, turning back to glance at Palmer and Elena, whose faces both were bright with fear. He reached a hand up to flick a wet lock of blonde hair out of his eyes. “Not the brightest detective on the force, are we, Strife? It’s no wonder you so badly fumbled the Genesis case. You certainly know how to pick them, Lockhart.”

“Just let them go!” Tifa shouted in response, Cloud’s chest expanding with anger.

“Why are you doing this?” Cloud demanded. “Killing off your own employees? Your brother? How does this make any sense?”

“Lazard was an illegitimate bastard, no one I recognized by blood,” Rufus answered, and Cloud noticed that he was rolling a coin over the knuckles of his free hand, his face still twisted by his smirk as his coat and belts bellowed and flapped in the wind and rain. “And these people all belonged to my father. They had no loyalty, nor did they display any competence at all. It was time to clean house. Besides… I live for the thrill.”

Cloud could not believe he was hearing this.

“Even Tseng?” Tifa demanded, her voice darkening. “I thought he was the only one who was loyal to you?”

Rufus chuffed out another laugh, his shoulders shaking, the coin still glistening in his grip. “Tseng betrayed me,” he responded, offering a look behind his shoulder to a whimpering Elena. “Not that it’s any of  _ your _ business, Lockhart. I’ve had enough of your intrusions into my personal affairs to last a dozen lifetimes.”

“That’s enough,” Cloud interrupted, training his aim on Rufus. “Drop the weapon, and surrender. Before it’s too late.”

But Rufus Shinra was only further amused by this. “Hmph,” he muttered, spinning the coin between his fingers again. “Don’t get cocky now.”

He then tossed the coin into the air, catching in his palm and peering down at it.

“How unfortunate,” he said in a drippy tone, “Looks like somebody has to die.”

He snapped his fingers at Darkstar, and Cloud watched in horror as the hound leaped to action, running for Palmer and leaping onto him, mauling him as the man screamed into his gag before he fell backward from the force and tipped over the ledge of the roof, falling seventy stories to his death.

“You psychopath!” Tifa shouted.

“A compliment if I ever heard one,” Rufus responded. “The two of you make a gamey pair. Let’s make this a night to remember. If you fail, the girl goes next.”

And with that, Rufus was raising his weapon, aiming the first shot at him, Cloud rolling out of its path just as Darkstar leaped toward him next.

Tifa was in front of him instantly, and Cloud had just skidded to his knees when she sent the animal soaring into the sky with a roundhouse kick to its ribcage.

Awestruck, Cloud got to his feet, wiping the rain out of his eyes as he heard Rufus laugh again, restocking his weapon.

“What are you doing?” he asked her.

“I have your back, you have mine,” Tifa answered, her eyes trained ahead again as Darkstar flipped back to its paws. “Now let’s take this asshole down.”

Cloud didn’t have an opportunity to respond or even process that fully, because Rufus was then firing shots at him, Tifa soon pummeling away at the beast as it tried to claw her to shreds. Elena had fallen to a heap at the ledge, holding her bound wrists above her head as if to block everything out.

Cloud put his best aim and marksmanship into his firefight with Rufus, rolling and ducking away from him, his bullets occasionally managing to graze his skin. Rufus was impossibly fast, and aside from the aid of mako in his weapon, Cloud wondered how he had ever learned to wield a gun so well.

No wonder none of those poor bastards he’d killed had ever stood any chance.

“You’re making me sweat,” Rufus laughed when Cloud popped off a shot that nearly took Rufus’s ear off.

His adrenaline was in full gear, and Cloud tried desperately to get the right aim to take Rufus out, casting Cura spells between reloading his magazine anytime Rufus managed to break skin with another well-timed bullet. He was losing stamina, but he soon realized that Tifa had managed to take out Darkstar, and she used the split second of Rufus’s distraction to send a powerful, glowing fist into the Shinra heir’s jaw.

It sent his revolver flying and Rufus careening into a backward spill against the ledge, his hands instantly flying to his face. Judging from the loud crack that resounded through the air, Cloud knew that multiple parts of his face were broken.

“Goddamnit!” Rufus swore, stumbling around drunkenly, blood pooling through his fingers. “Pathetic. I’ll-“

Tifa had moved forward, but Cloud was consumed by rage. He crossed the roof, instantly grabbing a hold of Rufus by his forearms, taking advantage of his stupor to pull his hands away from his face and pin him to the ledge.

Rufus’s face had already begun to purple, his nose crooked and his jaw slack, blood running into his cold, blue eyes. Despite this damage, he stared defiantly at Cloud, his lips drawing back into another smirk that sent Cloud over the edge.

“You like killing innocent people?” Cloud demanded, “You like throwing them from roofs?”

“To call any of those people innocent,” Rufus calmly responded, “Would require quite the stretch of the imagination.”

Cloud snapped, using all of the strength in his body to force Rufus further over the ledge until he was nearly dangling from it. “See how you like it, then,” he snarled.

But Tifa was instantly at his side, intervening, grabbing onto Rufus by his lapels and pulling him back.

“No!” she shouted, elbowing Cloud out of the way. Cloud finally heard sirens on the street below, the sky suddenly erupting with the whip and roar of a public security helicopter in the distance. “This isn’t justice, Cloud. We have to do this the right way.”

And then, Cloud watched in fascination as Tifa pulled her fist back, connecting with Rufus’ temple and nearly knocking him unconscious. Rufus groaned, sliding to the concrete, and before Cloud could even react, Tifa had flipped the President to his stomach and had her knee in his back.

“Tifa?” Cloud called, but she was ignoring him, pinning Rufus’ wrists together against his spine. 

Cloud just continued to stare, his heart pounding and his muscles burning, his hair spilling wet into his eyes as Tifa Lockhart pulled a pair of handcuffs out of her skirt.

“Rufus J. Shinra,” Tifa began calmly, locking the cuffs around his wrists with a clink, “You are under arrest for multiple counts of first-degree murder by the Eastern Continent’s Federal Investigative Unit.”

* * *

[ ν ] - εγλ - 2021 | February 16th

9:48 PM 

Sector0 Public Security Precinct - Homicide Division 

Cloud sat at his desk in the detective’s bureau, an unabashedly open bottle of scotch in front of him, the alcohol fading away the burn of pain in his limbs and wounds from his rooftop fight with Rufus. He was staring blankly at the closed Valentine’s Day Massacre file on his desk, his head throbbing as he thought over the confusing developments of the last few hours. He was still turning the moments on the rooftop of the Alexander Building over in his head, Zack shot and Scarlet mauled and Palmer tossed over the side of the building to his death, Elena whimpering nearby. He thought about Rufus, his pale skin glistening in the rain as he laughed sadistically, firing his weapon with ease and malice, his vicious, loyal beast at his side.

He thought of Tifa, who had somehow transformed from the sexiest woman he had ever seen in his life to the most powerful, her motives completely shifted when she raised her fists to the air and twirled her legs above the line of her hips as she fought.

And he thought about her with her handcuffs, announcing to the world that she was a federal fucking agent from Junon.

Cloud still couldn’t believe it. As soon as Rufus had been knocked out and cuffed, Tifa had immediately run to assist Elena, quickly working the hysterically frightened Turk out of her binds. But Cloud had only been able to stand there, his suit soaked completely through with rainwater as he watched Tifa carefully check Elena for any injuries before she tried to gently reassure her.

Observing her, a thousand questions burned his mind, and Cloud wanted to shout them all, but his voice was latched away deep in his throat, buried under a thick wall of sediment that he couldn’t swallow his way through.

He was too stupefied to think straight about what was unfolding around him, and as the helicopter hovered and public security officers began to descend for backup, Cloud kicked back into instinctual mode, instantly thinking of his wounded partner ten floors below, heading back the way he’d come and leaving Tifa on the roof with an influx of law enforcement that flooded the building.

He hadn’t seen her since. He’d stayed by Zack’s side, now unconscious but still alive when he was carted away into an emergency vehicle and taken to the hospital. Rufus, he understood, was immediately apprehended and taken away, placed under lockdown in a maximum security holding unit until arraignment. While all of this unfolded around him amidst the torrents of the thunderstorm, Cloud had just stood there, staring blankly into the darkness, trying to rearrange his thoughts.

Eventually, he’d made his way back to the station, where he presently sat, a drink in his hand while the bureau around him bustled and teemed with life from the shocking news of Rufus Shinra’s violent killing spree and the involvement of an undercover federal agent who at one time been their main suspect.

With Zack in the hospital undergoing surgery and everyone distracted by the earth-shattering developments of the case, Cloud was left to his own devices for the rest of the night, no one really interested in him as he brooded behind the scratched wood of his desk. His clothes were still damp, and his hair was a goddamn mess, leaving him with a chill that ran through to his bones that he could only chase away with the sips of whiskey he threw back. A few times, Biggs came by to check on him, offering him coffee, Wedge nearby with a box of donuts in hand, but each time Cloud dismissed them, content to drink his dinner straight from the bottle.

He was still mulling over Tifa’s entire involvement in the case and her dramatic shift in persona when the flash of her dark hair caught a sparkle under the harsh fluorescent lighting of the bureau up ahead. Setting his drink down and blinking through his inebriation, Cloud looked up at the sight of it, catching Tifa merging into the hallway from the direction of Cid’s office.

She was still dressed in her workout gear from earlier that afternoon, her hair still tied up on the top of her head, though her ponytail was now lopsided and crooked. She was wearing a raincoat over her shoulders, and Cloud could see the faint scratches on her neck and cheeks from her skirmish with Darkstar. Cloud also noticed for the first time that she was wearing a badge around her neck.

Cid and Barret were following behind her, Barret stopping to lean against the wall with his arms across his chest. Tifa turned around, nodding her head at Cid.

“Thank you, Agent Lockhart,” Cloud overheard Cid saying next. “I usually don’t appreciate the feds encroaching on my goddamn jurisdiction, but apparently, this was bigger than we had thought.”

“I’m only sorry I wasn’t able to stop him sooner, before so many people had to die,” Tifa responded softly. “We’ve been trying to nail him for a long time, but you can imagine how difficult it is to prosecute someone of his stature.”

“Sorry we even thought ta’ pin this whole mess on you,” Barret added then.

Tifa was about to say something else, but she turned her head then, her eyes scanning in Cloud’s direction. They fell on him, and they widened before they softened, and Cloud found himself frozen in place when his locked onto hers.

Noticing where her gaze was pointed, Cid Highwind waved his cigarette in the air, gesturing across the bureau to him. “Strife! Get over here.”

Reluctantly, Cloud put out his own cigarette and got to his feet, dropping his hands into his pockets as he made his way over to them in the hallway.

“Detective,” Tifa greeted, her voice lacking its usual honey, all cool and professional, though he did not miss the way that her lips were slightly curved in a smile.

“Strife, Agent Lockhart was just leaving,” the Captain informed him. “She’s given us all of the detail we need to try Rufus here in Midgar. He’ll be facing additional charges for a whole slew of crimes he’s accused of back in Junon.”

Cloud just nodded.

“Detective Strife and his partner were a big help in this case,” Tifa said to Cid. “The Federal Investigative Unit is grateful to you all for your collaboration.”

Cloud stared at her, feeling his nerves light up again, the blue in his eyes suddenly ablaze.

Cid nodded, blowing a plume of smoke into the air. He turned to Cloud. “Strife, Fair just got out of surgery. I want you to go down to the hospital and check on him. After that, head home for the rest of the night. I’ll have the grunts wade through the paperwork. We’ve got a lot of work to do getting Valentine to sit for the arraignments.”

Eager to be out of this entire situation, his blood now bubbling with the alcohol he’d spent the night ingesting, Cloud quickly whirled around them, grabbing his jacket before he headed outside to find his car.

He was making his way down the block, the rain now eased up to a light drizzle, his head still fuzzy and painful when he heard a thick, feminine voice behind him. Easing his stride to a stop, Cloud resisted the urge to roll his eyes as he turned around to find Tifa Lockhart standing a few feet behind him.

“Cloud! Wait.”

He faced her, still so pretty in the darkness, her skin as smooth as buttercream though marred by the evidence of the battle on the rooftop. Her lips were parted, exposing the line of her white teeth, her hands folded in front of her.

“What do you want?” he asked nastily, unable to control himself. Nothing she had told him since the moment he’d met her had been the truth, and now, he wasn’t sure he could even stand the sight of her. He wondered if this whole turn of events wasn’t worse than the possibility that she had been the actual killer. At least, in that case, he had been prepared for the outcome.

“Please, Cloud,” she began to plead, taking a step forward. “I’m so sorry. I just want - I just want to apologize. And to explain myself.”

Cloud tossed his head to one side in frustration. “I don’t have time for this,” he responded. “I need to go see my partner in the hospital.”

Tifa was relentless, though. She took another step forward, and Cloud was once again wrapped up in her scent as she drove closer, this time all vanilla and rain and blood and sweat. “Let me drive, then. You’re in no condition to get behind the wheel.”

He hated how they had only known each other for three short days, but she could read him so well. “I’m fine,” he responded, his voice betraying him as he slurred.

“Cloud.”

Cloud pouted, reaching into his pockets for his keys and handing them to her. He didn’t want to admit that he was relenting not because he knew it wasn’t a good idea for him to drive while intoxicated, but because deep down inside he couldn’t resist being around Tifa Lockhart and because he wanted to hear what she had to say.

He nodded his head in the direction of his car, and Tifa offered him a smile that had grown shy again as she walked around to the vehicle’s driver-side door. Shaking the light rain from his jacket, Cloud slid into the passenger side, his vision a little blurry and his head a little achy from all of the booze he’d been throwing back as he slumped into his seat.

“Cigarette?” Tifa asked calmly as she pulled into traffic, navigating Cloud’s cruiser through Midgar’s streets in the direction of the General hospital on the other side of the Sector.

Cloud reached into his vest wordlessly, retrieving one from his case and lighting it. He inhaled a long drag, letting the nicotine burn a cool trail along his nerves, winding some of the tension out of the tight band across his forehead. Rolling down the window a crack and blowing the smoke out, he passed it over to her.

Long moments passed in silence while she drove and smoked, Cloud stewing in his seat, staring out of the window as the city passed by, the streets still damp, passersby still on the sidewalks even at this late hour. With Tifa sitting only inches away from him, he couldn’t stop the rising irritation at this entire situation that was curled in his blood.

Eventually, though, she handed the half-smoked cigarette back to him, allowing him to finish it. Their eyes met as she pulled up to a traffic light, and Tifa blushed, looking away and straight ahead again.

“…I’m sorry, Cloud.”

“ _ Sorry _ ,” he repeated with a scornful huff, his vexation bubbling back up to the surface again. “You’ve been lying to me since the beginning. Who are you, Tifa? Are you even from Nibelheim? Did your father really die in the reactor accident? Are you even a lawyer? Did you really work for Rufus? Is your name even  _ Tifa _ ?”

She winced at his last question, and Cloud realized how harsh and angry his tone had grown. He tried to swallow it back, but it was no use now, and his throat burned as if lined with acid.

She let a beat pass, staring up at the red light for a moment before she answered. “All of those things are true, Cloud,” she responded softly. “I did go to school to study law, but I decided I wanted to become an investigative agent. I - I was undercover the entire time that I worked for Rufus in Junon. When he was younger and the Vice President of the Company, his father had suspicions about some of his proclivities. There had been several murders of socialites in Junon and a few wealthy young financiers who were Rufus’ college friends but also some of his most ardent business rivals, men who were climbing the ranks of Shinra and taking away some of the glory and accolades from him. I was hired as part of a private investigative team to find out what was going on. It took years, though, to gather any evidence on him that could be used to take him down, and whenever we got too close, his father would back down and change his mind.”

Cloud studied the profile of her face, one eyebrow lifting as he listened. The light changed, and Tifa pressed her foot to the gas, turning the wheel as she drove.

“When his father died, it became open season for us,” she went on. “But Rufus was suspicious of me, and so he refused to bring me with him to Midgar. Instead, I managed to find a position on the general legal team, in hopes that it would keep me close enough to him to monitor his activities and hopefully catch him before anyone else had to die.”

She was silent for another moment, driving and staring at the road ahead. Cloud watched her draw in a deep breath before she continued.

“When I worked for Rufus in Junon, I saw how truly sadistic he was. He had little regard for other people’s feelings, lied frequently and cared not who was hurt in the process, and engaged in some of the most morally questionable behavior I had ever witnessed, everything from sex to drugs and anything you could think of in between. He would manipulate and twist anyone or any situation any way he could to get his way, and he was so charming and smooth that no one ever questioned him or believed that he could be responsible for the deaths of those beautiful young women or those young men who had once been considered his friends.”

They had arrived at Sector0 General Hospital, Tifa pausing to pull the car up to the curb. Cloud’s cigarette had burned down to the filter, and he flicked it out of the window, blowing the last bit of smoke into the wind, feeling a little dizzy from the blend of nicotine and booze in his bloodstream.

“It was harder to keep track of his activities when he became President and moved to Midgar, and for those first weeks and months, I was living on eggshells, waiting for him to strike, all while I tried to find a way to preemptively stop him. But when Reeve and those Turks were killed, I knew that he was back on another streak, and I was trying to figure out how I could catch him before he killed again. But the law is tricky, and I soon realized that Rufus was onto me, and that he was trying to frame me for the crimes - the earrings and the lipstick. I had to be careful.”

“So why did you lie to  _ me _ ?” Cloud suddenly snapped, turning to her. Her face was highlighted by the streaks of moonlight that streamed in through the windshield, her scarlet eyes growing wide. “And why did you try to seduce me? What was the point of all of that? Why didn’t you just tell me what you were doing? I could have protected you. We were going to take you down, Tifa.”

Tifa lowered her eyes, shaking her head. “I was trying to protect  _ you _ ,” she insisted. “As soon as Midgar Public Security got involved, I knew that the case was going to be compromised and that all of my work would be undone. And when I realized what Rufus was trying to do - that he was trying to pin the murders on me - I had to stay close to you to make sure that you didn’t figure out the truth or try to arrest me for the crimes.”

Cloud groaned, facing the window.

“But…” she began, resting her palm on his forearm, and he turned back to her, finding her leaning in closer to him over the seat, her skin still damp from the rain and her eyes wide and candy-red. “I did fall in love with you, Cloud. That part is not a lie.”

He stared at her for a long moment, unable to tear his eyes from hers, his heart pounding against his sternum. He could read nothing but sincerity and a desperate sort of hopefulness in her eyes, but despite this, he felt choked by the weight of everything she had unloaded on him.

Finally, he tore away from her, shrugging her hand off of his shoulder and reaching for the door.

“I’m going in to see Zack,” was all he said.

“I’ll wait here for you,” she whispered as he climbed out of the car. “I don’t think he’d be very happy to see me.”

Cloud didn’t give a fuck. He slammed the door behind him, his mind ablaze and laced with an electrifying sort of pain as he made his way inside of the hospital.

* * *

[ ν ] - εγλ - 2021 | February 16th

10:31 PM 

Sector0 Midgar General Hospital 

Cloud was morose and downtrodden as he made his way through the hospital’s floors, flashing his badge every time a nurse tried to stop him and inform him that visiting hours had long ended. He was in no mood for anyone, really, not after the night he’d had and not after his conversation with Tifa in his car.

He was still turning her words over and over again in his head as he rode the elevator to the intensive care unit where Zack was being held. Cloud had had run-ins with feds before; it came with the territory of working in law enforcement, especially on high-profile cases. No local cop appreciated having a federal agent encroach on his jurisdiction, but sometimes, it couldn’t be helped.

Yet, he’d never had an experience with one that had been as entrapping and entangling as this one had been with Tifa Lockhart. He was still reeling from the full weight of her confession and her story, the pieces finally fitting together but leaving Cloud to wonder how he managed to miss all of that as it unfolded around him over the last three days.

He  _ did _ know how, though, thinking again of how she admitted that despite all of it, she had actually fallen for him.

Cloud wasn’t sure he believed her. He wasn’t sure how he could believe anything she ever said again.

He shoved that thought from his mind when he found Zack’s room, knocking twice on the door before he entered. The lights inside were on but had been dimmed, and Cloud stepped inside to find Zack laid in the center of a large gurney, sheets tucked around him, his chest bare with the exception of the heavy gauze that was wrapped around him, shielding his wounds. On either side of him lay two small boys, both asleep, each with their head snuggled under Zack’s heavy, muscular arms.

In a chair by the window sat a beautiful woman with chestnut hair that ran down her back, her eyes closed and her hands clasped in front of her in prayer. At the soft click of his shoes against the tile, she opened bright, jade green eyes to look up at Cloud, a smile gracing her lips.

“Cloud!” Aerith exclaimed as soon as she saw him. “Zack, sweetheart - your partner is here!”

Zack opened his sky blue eyes groggily, betraying that he hadn’t been asleep but instead was resting his eyes. Cloud felt his heart calm and settle a bit when Zack offered him a crooked, but characteristic, lazy grin.

“Cloud,” he wheezed, trying to sit up a little. “I’m so glad to see you. Thought I was a goner there for a minute.”

“Take it easy,” Cloud said, coming to stand beside him, gently touching his shoulder to relax him, and being careful not to disrupt the snoozing Essai and Sebastian that laid at his sides. “I’m just glad you’re okay.”

“Gonna take a lot more than a big dumb dog and a couple of bullets to take me out,” Zack laughed, coughing slightly. “Biggs was here a little while ago. He gave me the full run down. Man, hard to believe that Rufus was behind this whole thing from the start, isn’t it?”

Cloud just nodded, still turning over Tifa’s words, still having a hard time believing it himself.

“Turns out Darkstar was responsible for mauling Scarlet to death and ripping Hojo’s back open,” Zack went on. “Stupid mutt got me pretty good, too. Man, Rufus is a crazy motherfucker.”

“Zack!” Aerith chastised.

He just grinned at her, then turned back to Cloud.

“This hospital isn’t bad,” Zack commented, “But nothing is as good as my wife’s healing magic. I feel better already.”

“I just worked up a little spell to help him with the pain,” Aerith admitted with a giggle. “So if he seems a bit loopy, that’s why.”

“I’ll be as good as new before Cid finishes his current carton of cigarettes,” Zack agreed.

Cloud just shook his head. “You need to take it easy for a while,” he said. “And… listen. I’m sorry. For leaving you alone like that. If we hadn’t split up, none of this would have even happened.”

But Zack was instantly tossing his head from side to side. “Naw,” he insisted. “You did the right thing, Cloud. If you hadn’t gone after Tifa, Rufus might have never shown up and we probably wouldn’t have cracked this thing, and more people would have died. Sometimes the risks we take are worth it.”

Cloud just nodded, clasping his hand with Zack’s and letting those words sink in.

“I, for one, am glad you two are partners,” Aerith stated. “I rest a little easier at home knowing you two are together, watching each other’s backs.”

Cloud wasn’t sure why, but he started to blush, still feeling the warmth of his heavy drinking in his skin.

“Speaking of Tifa,” Zack went on, “Biggs explained the whole undercover federal agent thing to me. Man, did we let that one fly right under our noses. Guess that’s good news for you, though, huh? Looks like I was wrong about her.”

Aerith giggled as if she knew all about it, Cloud’s cheeks growing pinker, and he wondered how Zack managed to take anything positive from this entire situation.

“What?” Cloud said stupidly.

Zack glanced over at Aerith conspiratorially. “Cloud here has a thing for our number one suspect,” he explained. “Lucky for him, it turns out she wasn’t a bad guy after all. Now that we know she’s a cop too, maybe their little doomed fling might actually work out.”

“I doubt that,” Cloud protested. 

“Oh, please,” Zack muttered. “I saw what that woman did to you. I thought you’d be happy.”

“Besides,” Aerith added unhelpfully, holding up a finger in the air. “It’s about time you settled down, Cloud!”

Cloud just blushed even darker, raising a hand to his forehead and wishing he could light up a cigarette in this goddamn hospital.

They sat and talked for a while longer, the boys still sleeping, and when Zack finally yawned, Aerith got to her feet and began to shoo Cloud out of the room. He said goodnight to his partner and his small family, then left the hospital, finding Tifa still waiting for him behind the wheel of his vehicle.

“I’ll drop you off home, he said, coming around to the driver’s side door. “I’ll be fine to drive.”

But Tifa refused to open the door. “I don’t think it will be a very good look for a detective to catch a DUI, especially after he helped crack open one of the biggest cases of the year. I can take a cab home after I drop you off.”

Cloud just sighed, slamming his hand against the roof of the car and walking back around to the passenger side, climbing in and refusing to look at her as she drove off.

* * *

[ ν ] - εγλ - 2021 | February 16th

11:21 PM 

Carbuncle Apartment Complex - Sector2, Midgar 

They drove in complete silence across the sectors to Sector2, Cloud smoking another cigarette as Tifa drove, his attention focused out the window and not the curvaceous body seated beside him. Zack’s words were still echoing in his mind, and Cloud was trying to suppress them, not seeing a way out of the rift that had developed between him and Tifa because of all of the lies and omissions of truth that erupted between them over the past few days.

She arrived at his apartment complex, a mid-scale condominium unit called The Carbuncle. Cloud showed her where to park in the lot, and before they got out of the car, he pulled out his PHS.

“I’ll call you a cab,” he said.

But Tifa’s hand was on his arm again, stopping him, and he turned to find murky shiraz eyes staring back at him, her bottom lip poked out in a pout.

“Wait, Cloud,” she whispered softly. “Is it… is okay if I come inside for a little while? I think… I think we should talk.”

Cloud couldn’t stop himself from sighing out loud. He was irritated and tired, exhausted from the day, his limbs still sore, and all he wanted was a hot shower and another half dozen shots of whiskey before he passed out in his bed for the rest of the night.

“We already talked.”

Her expression further dampened, but she didn’t take her hand away. She shook her head, looking down.

“I mean… I just want to fix this. Please.” She looked up at him again. “Please, give me a chance.”

Cloud looked away from her, drumming his fingers against the car door’s handle. His head was still awash with the heat of his drinking earlier that night and clogged with the thoughts he’d been trying to unravel about the past few days, and he had to admit that there was nothing that he could do that could stop him from the way that his heart began to beat faster at the thought of taking Tifa upstairs to his apartment, his body’s reactions betraying him.

“…Fine.”

He got out of the car, Tifa handing him his keys and following suit. He led her with no words spoken through the apartment complex, silent in the elevator as they rode to his floor, opening his apartment to its complete darkness and showing her inside.

It was nothing compared to the luxury of her own, modest accommodations for a single man living on a detective’s salary. And it was bare, scarcely decorated, the living room consisting of a television and couches, the dining room table dusty from lack of use, the walls bare except for one photo of Cloud’s mother when she had been much younger.

Tifa was admiring that photograph when Cloud took both their coats and hung them up, shedding his blazer and removing his holster, dropping his weapon on a table in the foyer next to his keys. At least now that he knew Tifa was on the same side as he was, he didn’t have to worry about leaving his gun around her.

“You want a drink?” he asked, unsure of how to proceed, feeling massively awkward and already craving the rush of fresh alcohol stimulating his blood.

“Sure,” she answered without hesitation, still staring at the photo of Claudia Strife on the wall.

Cloud loosened his tie, rolling up his shirtsleeves as he made his way into the kitchen. He retrieved a couple of tumblers and an unopened bottle of bourbon, and when he returned, Tifa was sitting on his couch, waiting for him.

He set everything down on the coffee table, then looked down at her. Now with her coat shed and the lights on, he got a better look at the way that her body had been battered during their fight on the roof. Her arms and legs and abdomen were covered in scratches and cuts, fat bruises purpling her skin. The sight of it made him wince, and his earlier, surly thoughts were abandoned.

“Did anybody heal you after that whole ordeal?” he asked her, his voice soft again in a way that he could not control.

“No,” she answered, not looking up at him, staring at her hands. He realized that her once flawless, blood-red nail polish was now chipped, that her knuckles were calloused and scraped open. “I’m fine. Nothing that I’m not used to. I’ve taken worse beatings.”

Cloud didn’t like it, even so. “Hold on.”

He went back to the foyer, leaving her sitting there, finding his holster and his Glock where he left it. He unholstered it, sliding his healing materia out of the slot before returning to the couch with it.

He sat down beside Tifa, reaching for her hand. She looked up at him, letting him take it, and despite the battle-worn roughness in her skin, it was still so soft.

“Just close your eyes for a moment,” he told her gently.

She did so, and Cloud focused on the materia, casting a Cura spell. Warmth spilled forth from his palm as he held it up over her, a faint green glow descending over her entire body in a wave. He watched as it wove its way into her skin, knitting her torn flesh back together and easing the discoloration of her bruises. It passed almost as quickly as it began, and when the spell was broken, Cloud set the materia on the table and busied himself with finally pouring their drinks.

When he let go of her hand, Tifa finally opened her eyes, looking up at him as she blinked. He handed her a glass.

“T-thanks,” she said, and Cloud just shrugged.

They drank in silence for long moments, Cloud grateful for the fiery eruption of alcohol finally greeting his veins again. With Tifa sitting so close to him, he was having a difficult time keeping his heart rate and his feelings under control.

“Cloud…” she began when she had almost finished her drink.

“Yeah?” he responded, turning to her, their eyes meeting, his eyebrows raised at the careful trepidation of her voice. This was nothing like the Tifa that had flirted with him mercilessly, dragging him by his tie and handcuffing him to her bed.

“I’m sorry,” she apologized again. “But - I meant what I said in the car. I know it’s only been a few days, but… I did fall for you. And I care about you greatly. I just… I want to be able to try and start over. Will you forgive me?”

Cloud felt the air begin to compress in his lungs, his body overheated and not because he was drinking again. He looked down at his hands, leaning forward over his knees as he shook his head.

“I… I don’t know, Tifa,” he responded softly. “I want to. I care about you, too…. And I fell for you, too - hard. And Tifa… I don’t get involved with women this way. I keep my distance. I don’t have time to have my heart broken.”

He trailed off for a moment, still not looking at her, staring now at his wingtips, the leather soaked through from the rain and probably ruined. 

“I just... I just don’t know how I can trust you.”

A silence passed, and then Tifa had her hand on his knee. He finally looked up at her, finding her claret eyes glassy, as if ready to spill over with tears. 

“You can trust me, Cloud,” she said softly. “I promise. Let me make it up to you. I’ll  _ show _ you that you can trust me again. Words aren’t the only way.”

And then, before he had a chance to respond, she was kissing him.

Despite the combat that was occurring in his brain, Cloud knew that he was powerless against the press of Tifa’s lips to his own, the heat of her body filtering into his as she leaned closer to him. It didn’t matter what persona was employing or how she found her way under his skin, he knew that there was something unspeakable between them that he could not name, tying their hearts together in a manner that could not be refused.

As her kiss grew more passionate and demanding, Cloud found himself lifting her by the waist, pulling her into his lap. She folded her legs around him, clutching his shoulders and bringing with her all of the scents that the day’s turmoil had laid across her skin. He held her tight, his now gloveless fingers digging into the warm, exposed flesh of her midriff, Tifa squirming and centering her heat right over his groin.

Their passion was bubbling over like lava, unable to be contained and leaving Cloud feeling dizzy as she sucked his tongue eagerly. His body overcome by sensations, a final few cells in his brain tried to connect and process, urging him to slow down and think, but he was past that, his fingers now curling under the hem of her tank top and pulling it over her head.

He was palming her over her sports bra, still kissing her, ready to tear it away when Tifa suddenly pulled back from him. She cupped his cheeks in both hands, looking down at him.

“We’re dirty,” was all she said.

It didn’t take a genius to read her meaning. Without even thinking about it, Cloud got to his feet, carrying her with him, Tifa now crossing her legs around his waist. He nodded at her, then carried her into the back of his apartment, straight for his bathroom.

He set her down on her feet, and by then their mutual desire had erupted into a full-blown inferno. Instantly, they were clawing at each other, lips melded again, tearing each other’s clothes away. Cloud kicked his shoes and socks off into a corner, Tifa tearing him out of his vest and shirt and ripping the buttons off as she went, pulling his pants down to his ankles with one smooth yank.

Naked in front of her as she stood there, having lost her sneakers and sports bra and skirt but still in her underwear and thigh-highs, Cloud lost complete control. He watched as Tifa pulled out the elastic from her thick hair, dark locks spilling across her shoulders and back, and Cloud soon backed Tifa up toward the shower, turning the water on and lifting her and placing her inside, still half-dressed.

He couldn’t control how suddenly bloodthirsty his was, and he had her pinned against the wall directly under the spray, tearing at the remains of her clothing that was now drenched, steam rising around them. His fingers tore at her panties, ripping the drenched fabric into shreds until it was unraveling around her skin, Cloud dropping them somewhere on the porcelain of the tub as Tifa cried out at the rough deftness of his hands.

He left her thigh highs on, letting his palms travel the hot, wet curves of her body as the water continued to beat into both their skins. It pounded into the muscles of Cloud’s back and shoulders, unweaving some of the tension of the day, and it covered Tifa’s breasts and her firm tummy in rivulets, her hair sticking to her skin, Cloud unable to stop staring at all of it.

“Cloud,” she gasped, her chest heaving.

He leaned in and kissed her again, their tongues meshing and twisting, Cloud rutting his erection between her thighs as she lifted her hips toward him. Their kisses became more and more fervent and deeply entwined, fusing their souls into one, and Cloud realized that no matter what had happened in the rearview, Tifa was the only one he had ever wanted, the only one he was ever going to have.

That thought and her sentiments on his couch burning holes in his skull, Cloud abruptly tore his lips away from hers, grabbing her by both wrists and raising her arms above her head as he spun her around and pinned her face-first to the cool tile. He held her wrists above her head firmly with one hand, pressing the front of his body against the back of hers, the round curve of her backside nestling his cock as he leaned in and kissed the side of her throat tenderly. She moaned and cooed, arching her back, and Cloud reached his free hand around the front of her body, toying lightly with her breasts for a moment, circling and pinching her nipples before he was dropping his fingers between her thighs.

“Cloud,” she whimpered his name again as he combed over her sopping seam, barely tapping her clit, already pert and desperate for him. Tifa mewled again, spreading her legs to encourage him as he anchored his knee between them, but he kept his pace and his touch listless and inconclusive.

“Tifa,” he breathed in response, hot across her neck and shoulder, feeling her tremble beneath him as the water continued to scour them. “You said I could trust you?”

“Yes,” she responded instantly, breathlessly.

“And you’ll make this up to me?” he asked. His finger circled her nub, then abandoned it.

“Yes!”

“You promise?”

“I promise, Cloud!” she whined, her voice now shrill.

He kissed the back of her neck through her hair, then pulled away from her long enough to sink his entire length inside of her, unable to suppress the groan that escaped his throat at the sensation of how tight and wet she was. Tifa let out a wild cry, struggling against him, but Cloud held her wrists firm and placed all of his body weight on her, rocking into her with his hips and setting a steady but deep pace as he reached around and rubbed her clit with the pads of three fingers.

She was crying out in ecstasy within seconds, lifting one leg to balance it on the corner of the tub, opening herself up wider to him and letting him delve in deeper. She keened and mewled, setting off firebombs in his chest, Cloud accelerating his tempo and keeping his fingers to her throbbing little button to make sure he drove her completely over the edge before he fell face forward himself.

“Cloud,” she began to cry his name in a chant, over and over again. “Oh, Cloud, Cloud, please, Cloud…”

He concentrated on both their releases, intending to bring them there together, the heat of the water and the steam making him dizzy and intensifying the eruptions across his nerves. He closed his eyes, basking himself in Tifa, forgetting about the wildness and the lies and the bloodshed of the last few days, letting the scalding hot water wash it all away.

She cried his name a final time, clenching her walls around him and scraping her fingernails against the smooth tile as she began to sob through her orgasm. Cloud stilled his fingers against her clit but held her firmly in place, soon spilling inside of her as he felt her fall apart around him. He huffed and moaned her name, and Tifa was still wailing, the euphoria draining through her veins and out of her pores until she became boneless beneath him. 

Cloud dropped her wrists, holding her now by the waist, his face buried against her shoulder. She was beginning to slide down the tile, but he caught her, holding her upright despite the way that his own muscles were beginning to go slack. Gently, he pushed away from her, steadying himself with one palm to the wall, gently turning her in his arms to face him.

Her eyes were wet, and her lips were still parted, split open and bruised from their earlier kisses and the way that she had bitten down on them as he fucked her mindless. Cloud thumbed her cheek, seeing the adoration in her eyes, reflecting it back at her as he held her to him, losing himself in those bright, sparkling rubies.

“It’s okay, he finally spoke after a long moment. “I promise, too.”

Tifa emitted an elated laugh, wrapping her arms around his neck, and Cloud smiled, reaching over to shut the water off.

And from there, he gathered his bearings, picking her up in his arms and carrying her into his bedroom, not even bothering to dry either of them off before he laid her down in the center of his bed and made love to her all over again, their wet bodies soaking his sheets, Tifa later flipping him over in the dead of night and returning the favor.

And the very next day, they awoke to sunshine, the city no longer under the threat of violence and death, at least for a short while. With no new homicides to investigate, Cloud and Tifa went out on their first date that evening, starting over and starting anew.

Just as they had promised.

_ FIN _

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> .... you didn't actually think I'd have our girl commit all those atrocities, did you?
> 
> Rufus here was modeled after Patrick Bateman from American Psycho.
> 
> This was fun. Your comments and discourse throughout have been a joy. I think the only person who vocally suspected Rufus was MarieBoheme - I wish I had a prize for you, smart girl.
> 
> If you're still reading this, thanks again for indulging me and the hottest pairing on earth. More to come - follow me on twitter @nitezintodreamz 💜💫💋


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